The Epiphanies of Summer Training

By the end of our third-year summer training, two things became abundantly clear to me.

First, that I will likely live through a nuclear holocaust. And second, that I was not going to make a career running blast furnaces and Linz-Donawitz converters - not my thing, I would realize.

The weeks preceding the internship were dreary - if not tragic. The college was ensnared in a jaundice epidemic of epic proportions; over eighty percent of the hostel residents were affected by it. It was crazy. Everyone looked yellow and alleged that others did - talk of a jaundiced view of the world. The college dispensary was in overdrive, prescribing medicines (that, as usual, cured nothing), and writing away medical certificates.

The quacks of Rourkela performed thumping business coming up with miraculous "Ayurvedic" cures for jaundice.

The college authorities were sleeping at the wheel.

In a couple of weeks, the college was shut down, the mess was closed, and the water connections (which were found to be reason for the epidemic) were stopped.

Those that could, fled to their homes, like rats deserting a sinking ship.The final years had to stay back as their semester exams were around the corner. This was, after all, the last time they had to rote their lessons and "give" their exams (which is how we characterized the activity of writing exams). Come what may; jaundice or plague, they were determined to brave it out and get the wretched degree in their hands.

An unfortunate few, like me, who were still in the third year, had to stay back for forty-five more days, for mandatory training at Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP).

Summer was at its peak and the mercury often touched forty eight degrees Celsius. The training started early at 7 am in the morning and ended by 1 pm. It was a hogwash, as was the one from the previous year.

Exactly a year ago, I had been comfortably ensconced in the familiar environs of my sister's home in Bangalore and took training at the relatively plush foundry at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). I was a year younger and hence a lot less cynical, and took my non-ferrous metallurgy, precision casting, and ductility of alloy steels, quite seriously.

But I also had my priorities clear. The exquisite food at the HAL executive canteen was a clear attraction. I was one of the first to arrive at the canteen and once I devoured over multiple servings of food, took long walks around the HAL campus. The timings were not regulated and the authorities were lax. After maybe the second week, I started leaving right after lunch. I had found friends that I could hang out with in nearby Indira Nagar and I went out for movies, played cricket, and did other fun stuff with them. I had a great time!

How things had changed in a year! Bangalore's temperate weather and my sister's home comfort gave way to the notorious Rourkelan summer, and the jaundice-stricken hostels.

To make matters worse, the training was a lot more organized in RSP!

We all had to travel by the college bus. The security didn't let us out without permits. So, we had to clock the entire six hours every day. We were shown the plants and offices over the first hour or so and made to sit around for the next five hours, with nothing to do. A few enterprising folks, sang songs, recited shaayaris, and cracked jokes, to while away time and keep others entertained. After a few weeks, however, we were wary of the routine - the jokes and the shaayaris were getting contrived and repetitive.

The food at the steel plant was horrible; to a point where we started missing the mess food.

Within a matter of days, I hitched up with a few final years to cook our own food once we returned - the final years from classes and me from training. Through a summer of scorching heat and depressing boredom and desperation, we followed the same routine for forty days. We came back to the hostel, around one thirty; then, sat around, cut vegetables feverishly, and prepared food in meditative silence - we didn't have the energy to even exchange pleasantries - and then ate the food.

Due to the stoppage of the water connection, we had to ration the water that we fetched from a few kilometers away and use it ultra-judiciously.

When we ate the simple dal/sambhar, rice, and pappad, by 2.15 pm or so, it was the only thing that offered succor to a bunch of bruised souls. We, then, forced ourselves to a quick nap that lasted for half-hour as the power was cut off, due to summer "load shedding", precisely at 3 pm. In the heat and sultriness, it was impossible to sleep without the fan. We spent the time between 3 pm and 6 pm at Back Post in darkness. We followed the same routine every day. Even the stimulating environment of Back Post helped little to cheer us up.

Our life had become an under-funded, Malayalam art movie and a 1980's Doordarshan Tuesday drama, combined!

On one of the days at training, a gregarious, middle-aged engineer, an alumnus of REC Rourkela and employed at the steel plant, took us to the "restricted area" of the Blast Furnace, through the control room, right into the garba griha of the Steel Plant. It was awful - the air heavy with simmering heat and particulate dust, and the steady din of machinery and flowing molten metal. I looked around at the workers that made a living in this hellhole. Their eyes were in a daze and they looked at me forlornly. This is what the biblical "fire and brimstone" of eternal damnation must look like, I had thought.

"Sir, how do you work at this place? It is so hot!", I asked the engineer, as we came out.

He smiled. "You will get used to it", he said, quite convincingly. I didn't think so.

When I returned to the air-conditioned comfort of the control room and felt the stark contrast of the surroundings, the lazy bum in me, once again, came to the fore, to make a sweeping career decision. There is no way I am going to spend a life time in the company of molten alloys and steel, I said to myself. My romance with metallurgical engineering had ended.

At the end of forty-five days, as I took the thirty four journey back to Madras, I wrote my epitaph onto the "training diary".

I had to choose another gig...

Interested in reading my other blogs?

How about my ode to old Hindi film music? Which is here --> THE GOLDEN AGE OF HINDI FILM MUSIC.

The first episode is HERE.

Or my eulogy to one of the greatest playback singers of India? SP BALASUBRAHMANYAM.