MADHOUSE

(True Stories of the Inmates of  Hostel 4, IIT-B)

Editor : Urmila Deshpande

Contributing Editor :  Bakul Desai

Publisher : Westland, Year 2010, Pages 335, several B&W photographs

 

Review by Indra Mani Lal

Excerpts :

( ) Walking into a classroom of over a hundred freshies generally offered this hilarious sight. Some guys with half their moustache shaved off, some the left half, some with their right half. And of course, there was a set of Hitler and anti-Hitler moustache too. Sometimes there were attempts at shaving in a S shape, but given that freshies had just started sprouting facial hair and were not yet adept at shaving, this look was mostly unsuccessful. Each hostel’s seniors sent freshies to classrooms with their hostel’s particular shave pattern, which was decided by the seniors’ popular vote. In 1977, H6 guys had their left sides shaved off while H4 guys were Hitlers or non-Hitlers. And to their horror, two bearded freshies, Christopher Fernandes and Edgar Dias were made to shave off half of each other’s beards.  

-Ashvin (Ghoda) Sanghvi, ’76-‘81

( ) Our hostel was one of those at IIT with the ‘privilege’ of having partitions between two ‘rooms’ instead of complete walls. These partitions left about six inches of space at the bottom and about two feet on the top. This space was the source of interesting dynamics between partition mates. Vasu and I were roommates (partition mates) in our first year and he had this strange habit of locking his room. He would lock it even when he left to take a shower. That innocent act irritated me, since I was of the firm conviction that hostel rooms should never be locked. How else could I steal cigarettes and pondies (what we called educational material of a certain genre) otherwise ? So one day I jumped over the partition and bolted his room from the inside, jumped back into my room, locked my room and left. Poor Vasu was pacing the corridor in his towel when I returned much later, but, as always, he did not pitch a fit about it. I knew that he would return the favour, and he did. But little did he know that I had planned for it by keeping the window ajar. And he did not know about my flexible ways and that my wiry hands could somehow squeeze in through the bars and extend far enough to open the door.

-Ashvin (Fish) Iyengar, ’77-‘83

( ) Among all this food-related misery were two gourmet experience. For one Friday evening meal, I don’t know who, but I suspect Selva, strong-armed somebody in the mess to make sweet corn soup. After a long wait in hungry anticipation of this soup, steaming Cauldrons came out and were placed on the table. As people attempted to dive in and help themselves they realised that what they needed was not serving spoons but knives to cut pieces off this soup before they could eat it. It was certainly corn, it also was certainly sweet, but somebody had taken the concept of a soup – as something that it expected to be thicker than water – to the limit. But, such was the level of desperation where food was concerned, that every one happily chewed the soup and asked for more. Whatever it was, it certainly tasted better than the regular fare we were dished out every day.

( ) The chikna, eccentric bawa Cyrus (Coover) Gazdar wore swimming trunks that were a dazzling red and skimpier than a bikini. One day he heard that the authorities had begun to crack down on all illegal swimmers who treated Vihar lake as their pool. The cops would come, confiscate swimmer’s clothes if they lay on the bank, wait for the swimmer to come ashore, bundle him into their jeep, drive down to Andheri police station and leave him there to find his way home. This was a really strong measure and scary enough to deter even the bravest. But not for nothing was this Coover known as Mr Eccentric. His passion for swimming in Vihar was greater than even fear of death penalty, leave alone something as petty as this. He stitched a pocket on the inside of his dazzling red skimpy bikini look-alike jocks. He would put a one rupee coin and his room key in that pocket, walk in these trunks to the lake and dive into the cold crocodile-infested waters.

And did the inevitable happen ? Yes, it did. There were no clothes to confiscate, but the cops were glad to sit beside a gora, chikna, skimpy red bikini-ed bawa who would be their companion from Vihar to Andheri, and it was with a heavy heart that they let him off at Andheri. And what did our intrepid friend do ? Simple. He stood in bus queue, boared the 396 when it came, dug into the pocket of the skimpy, pulled out a coin and said casually to a flabbergasted conductor, ‘Ek Pawar’.we can only imagine how the other passengers took this, but there were several who espied him walking the two kilometers from the main gate back to H4, where he dug into the pocket of the skimpy yet again to retrieve his room key and finally disappeared from sight.

( ) I had the distinction of being the partition mate of noted scientist and Advisory Council member of IITB, Prof. Vinayak Dravid (and his pigeons) who at the time was learning his now famous skills with metallurgy and material science in the labs of IIT Bombay. For his research work he enlisted the services of one Jadhav whose sole task was to ‘furnace on karo’ and ‘furnace off karo’ depending on whether Dravid was entering the lab or exiting the lab.

For his BTP (B Tech Project) he was required to submit his project outline to his guide. Normally, a student scripted a long outline for an even longer project, but Dravid was conscious of his time and wanted t maximise his ROI (return oninvestment) for the time invested in preparing a project outline. He picked up twelve thick text books, found the pages where his project outline matter appeared, and used computer punch cards as bookmarks. He then told his guide that the outline started from ‘this’ – being punch card no. 1 to ‘that’ – being punch card no. 2 and then from #3 to #4 and so on.

Despite this short cut, Dravid managed to score a perfect ‘A’ for his BTP. Not surprising, he had superb presentation skills.

- Dabba

( ) In the 6^th semester we had a Professor Nandedkar. I have no idea what he taught. Maybe wave guides ? Even folks who normally bunked classes would not miss his lectures because of the entertainment value. He taught in all seriousness, completely unaware of his own oddness. He kept saying and doing things while the class was laughing, rolling on the floor-with tears in their eyes. Literally. If you had to make a movie – here is the continuous shot you could have had focusing on him:

Nandedkar arrives at the department on his scooter. He gives hand signals for every little curve he negotiates along the path. He has a raincoat on, and a rain cap – with the ear flaps sticking out on both sides, flapping in the breeze (it isn’t raining). Now he parks the scooter and starts walking towards the department  - continuing to give hand signals at every turn. As he walks into the class, some clown tells him –‘Sir, we are prepared for the surprise quiz’. And now Nandedkar says, ‘Then it is not a surprise?’ (He made questions out of sentences where they should not be). And as a result he gives up on the quiz.

As the professor is talking, he has already taken off his raincoat but not the rain cap. He forgets in that exchange that he needs to take off his cap. Instead, he continues to take off the already taken-off raincoat. This time he unbuttons his shirt completely. You can see a funky undershirt (made out of a netlike material). The girls in the front row are completely aghast not just about the undershirt, but perhaps at what might be taken off next. And of course the class is now rolling on the floor.

- Ghoda

( ) Prof Burragohain (later Director of IIT Guwahati) from Civil Engg was teaching us App Mech (don’t ask me what App Mech means. I know as much about it now as I did then). In one of his tests, he had devised a problem. When I got my paper back, I realised that I had 3 out of 5 for one particular answer. The answer was correct, except, I had added two numbers instead of subtracting them, and that cost me 2 marks. When I was told that 2 marks would get me out of the D grade into a C grade, I braved it to Burragohain’s office and told him, ‘Sir, because of a silly mistake, I got 3 marks. If you can pardon my mistake, I can get 5 and therefore, a C grade.’ Burragohain snatched the paper from my hand and exclaimed, ‘You are right! It is a silly mistake. It is my silly mistake.’ And he scratched out my 3 marks entirely. And ensured that I remained degraded.

- Bakul

( ) Every hostel has its own intra-hostel gaali competition. The really fun ones were between adjacent hostels held on rooftop terraces in the dead of night. We would take on our neighbouring hostel and bestow the choicest gaalis upon them, and they, from their terrace, would return the favour.

H4 was positioned in such a way that H3 was our immediate neighbor and the wings faced each other in a gaali-friendly format. H3 was full of PG’s who spent no more than 2 years in IIT and often came to IIT after graduating from some tame engineering college somewhere. H4 on the other hand consisted of battle-hardened warhorses who spent seven years to do a five-year course, and were coached in gaali giving by senior veterans from their first year on.

Deepak Patil aka Boss was a veteran gaali master whose imagination ran wild. The number and variety of things he could do in a gaali was mind boggling. Sharookh Dara Lashkari was high in MCs and BCs, but also high on voice. During a regular gaali spat with H3 from the terrace of the Central Wing, Sharookh, being a star gaali master was very much in attendance. Traditionally, we thrashed H3 hollow every time.

( ) Corridor cricket. Almost the entire NWFF (Norh Wing First Floor) played cricket in the nude. One of these times, an H8 freshy was sent to H4 to drop a leaflet in every room. The freshy was allowed to walk to the end of NWFF, and as he turned around to go back, he was faced with NWFF-ers playing galli-cricket in their skin.

He tried to run past them, but he was stopped by Rakesh Kapoor, Neil Elijah, Atul Mallik and the rest, and very politely, asked who he was, what he wanted there in H4, and other inane and mundane questions. He tried to keep his eyes to the ground, but he panicked, dropped his entire stack of leaflets, and desperately tried to run away, but he kept bumping into the naked NWFF’ers. They finally asked him, still politely, to join their team since they were a man short. Naturally, as a team-player, he had to wear the team uniform.

The scene was a riot, and soon gathered a small crowd – all jeering and cheering the freshy. I doubt that he ever returned to H4.

( ) Back at the hostel, there was another mammoth reception committee awaiting me. News had spread that She shook my hand. How ? Pai was with me the whole time and had not stopped anywhere to make a call. There were some friends of Vijjy’s from H1 in her room, but they didn’t look like the types who could spread this news beyond their own wing. Anyway, this time, my hand was almost pulled out of my body. Every guy vigorously shook my hand. A few attempted to take that hand towards their face and neck, at which point I reclaimed it in disgust. They thought of a new method. They shook my hand and then applied the molecules of that second-order handshake to their faces, lips, neck and wherever else they thought they needed to. For the first time, I felt I might have been better off in Vijjy’s shoes – her head injury seemed preferable to this mental torture from these logicians. Their logic –

A girl shook hands with Bakul…  Bakul shook hands with me … Therefore, the girl shook hands with me.

-- Bakul

( ) Keni needed a medical-cert for some Homo-exam he had missed. Homo was a notorious prof in the elec dept named MS Kamath. He was known as Homo because he screwed guys through his dangerous tests and exams. Homo was also wise to certs issued by IIT disp docs. He did not accept them. We went to see a lady doctor who was known to give out med-certs for a fee. We slipped in past her legit patients. She asked Keni what he was suffering from, and he admitted to ‘very high fever and stomach pains’. She saw through him, and told him she didn’t have time to waste and asked point blank if he needed a med-cert. She asked him for Rs 15. Keni fished around in all his pockets, emptied out all his change on her table, and since it wasn’t close to the demanded amount, he looked at me for help. I explored and dug out what I had, and between us, we managed Rs 8.45

By now the lady-doc was fuming, and when asked to accept all the change as payment and give us a cert she exploded. ‘I am doing you a favour and you are asking me to count chutta-paisa instead of treating patients who are really sick?’

Unperturbed, Keni said, ‘Sorry ma’am, but since it is only about Rs 10, could you sign off just high fever for that amount?’

We were kicked out of her office of course. But not before Keni had whacked off a page from the lady-doc’s medical pad. We walked back to H4 happy. To this day, I don’t think I have received my share of the change that Keni had so deftly returned to his pockets when he saw where the situation was headed. He also got his med-cert for free.

I learned something about staying cool that day. One of the many ‘Truly Higher Education’ lessons we all learned while at IIT.

--Dabba

( ) In my second or third year, I was once standing in a queue at the ticket counter at Vikhroli station. Just ahead of me was Gautam Mukherjee from C83. He startled me by asking the ticket clerk to issue him ‘one Vikhroli ticket’. Here was a guy asking for a ticket to Vikhroli from Vikhroli. A ripple of amused laughter ran through the queue. Those who hadn’t heard Gautam were quickly updated by those who had, and soon, there was a lot of sniggring which clearly embarrassed Gautam. What was more surprising however was that the ticket clerk was totally unfazed. He just cast a deadpan look at Gautam and asked casually ‘IIT student? Dadar or VT?’

When it was my turn to purchase a ticket I asked the clerk how on earth he had deduced that Gautam was an IIT kid. He wasn’t wearing any IIT T-shirt, and he was actually wearing shoes and not the trademark slippers. The clerk was very candid. According to him, there were at least ten IIT’ans everyday who asked for a ticket to Vikhroli. Clearly, he did not see an IIT’an in me because he went on to remark, ‘People say, and I have heard, IIT students are walking brains. But I’ve never seen crazier lunatics, I can tell you that.’

( ) During the great Railway strike of 1974, I casually to my father as he was leaving for office ‘Well – I can get my friends to help, and we’ll run the trains.’  An hour later his secretary phoned. ‘Sir, please come to the office at VT. Your father is in a meeting. The general Manager wants to meet you, I am sending the car to you.’

Later that afternoon, a valiant group of H4 students assembled at the Driver’s Rest Room at VT. We were addressed by a railway officer and gave us instructions. We would serve as guards, and have a training run that afternoon. The pay was twenty five rupees per day, which was grand. Though we were not allowed to drive the trains by ourselves, we learned how to, and the few drivers on duty were happy enough to allow us to try. Vicky was walking to the train through a dense crowd at VT station with a burly engine driver one morning when there was a scuffle and a shout. He gasped to see the blood flowing from the thick forearm of the station master, who stood his ground, shouting at the retreating figure who had stabbed him. The union had struck back.

--Punk

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My Take : These  bright young persons have made it to the IIT, and out of parental care into the ‘free’ hostel world. The collection of outrageous stories and the ticklish situations into which these students get into shall make you fall down laughing. It’s assuring to know that so many of our current leaders from polyester to politics, from software to big industries are so human and have such a sense of humour. The book is set in the days when there were no mobiles, iPods and computers. A very engaging and captivating book.

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Subject type : Reminiscences

Narrative Style : Lucid and captivating

Readability : Difficult to keep down

Reader’s Interest : Excellent

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