On a side note: I would encourage girls to study Mechanical Engineering. Even Mech. Engineers like a bit of greenery here and there... if you get what i mean.....
So, here we were..... 45 guys, 2 girls (again, YES!*pause* just! *pause* 2! *pause* girls!), in final year Mechanical Engineering. Stupid as it may seem, all of us had never gone for any major industrial visits, in the last 3 years from whence we started studying engineering. (guess what? we were supposed to have 3 visits each year!)
Like all the Engineering colleges, the college too was not keen on sending students for I.Vs (Industrial Visits). We had seen all the other classes being granted permission for visits to Jaipur, Bangalore, Ooty, Delhi (Ooty? Industrial visit? huh?). The amount of excitement in their voices made us crave for one too...
Another side note (I promise, this is the last side note): Mechanical Engineering students here are considered the most rowdy of all the Engineering branch students (Rowdy is an extreme understatement). Considering our "Homo-Erectus type" social skills, the professors are never pro-visits.
So, we started the paper work in the college... dumb stuff that needs to be done. You know, making the Head of Department understand how we were in dire need of an I.V. Well, us students being so obedient, law abiding, extremely good students (Yes, i am being sarcastic here) the professors were a little...... scared? yes, scared i guess.... Still the concept of sending the students off for 6 days was exhilarating to them too! (No students for a week!) And so they helped us. Working our way through the snobbish peons, and useless staff that all college has, to get a few autographs from the Principal (yeah, he's a celebrity). (I'll cut the principal's part, its another story in itself)
So, its decided. 3 days in Mahabaleshwar, 2 days at a Karnala resort, and just 5 hours for the real IV part of the trip. (Yeah! Engineering IV's ROCK!)
Few days and a lot of paperwork later......
I walk into my college at 6.30 am (usually i don't wake until 9 am) with my backpack for a week and my acoustic guitar. Everybody cheers! (He brought his guitar!! FIREPLACE PARTY!)... We made small talk for half an hour until everyone arrived. Everybody is in good spirits. After multiple head-counts (which never matched each other) we did a customary pooja before leaving. Well, the pooja was engineering student style..... a coconut, (common!, we can't forget our roots) a bottle o' rum, and cigarettes. (Now we're talkin'!!)
And we set off for the first 3 days in mahabaleshwar...... (To be continued)
