This time last year...

Around this time last year, our four years of college life was coming to an end. With the exams over we were all eager to overcome the last hurdle in our path to become the first batch of true- NITians all set to join the big corporate world...the project submission. And as usual, all of the guys started with their projects after the end-semester exams.What had to be done in a year's time was being crammed into ten days. There were few who were sincere to their work and were particular about doing their projects all by themselves, come what may. Another bunch had outsourced their work to the well known project-makers in and around the state or their passed out seniors . .and the final pack of guys, who knew nothing of what was to be done, but had the confidence that they would get away with anything. And needless to say , we fell in the final category. We had confidence because we had got away with almost no work the last time. And this time too, we looked like doing the same.

By others' standards we were very industrious in our project work...or atleast so we were told (sarcasm...may be..but we didn't realize ). We had the routine weekly meetings on fridays with our guide Ms. Hemarani which was a 15-minute affair and it always ended up in PJs ,pulling each others' legs and an occassional treat..all sponsored by the only girl in our group, Silky. We told to her about the project so much so that she thought we were all doing something great and that it would come out great.We hadn't actually started doing anything, but had lots of flashy stuff to show off to our peers. And so the time went by smoothly.

It was post-examination- pre-project-presentation time, when all the people were running around trying to finish off the project somehow. We too were and it was only then that we realised that our project was way too out of our scope..or any of the others..for that matter. In our desparate attempt to make up something, we went to coimbatore (myself and raghav) only to know that the IC required for our project was only available in Mumbai. We rested our case with funda, the only person in the group who had some idea of what was to be done. From then on it was all of us just trying to cover up the whole thing. Days went by and it was the day before the presentation.

As is the practise we went to our guide . With her usual emotionless face she asked "What is your project about?". We were dumbfounded and then she started firing questions at us about our work and what not and asked us if we had informed her about the various stages of the project. We had our own justifications ,but she simply did not care. Well, we left all fingers-crossed and still hoping that we were going to do it.

So finally arrived the D-Day we went to her with the report ,but she was too reluctant to give us the green signal for the presentation. But after a lot of negotiations she agreed. We had thought it was a good sign, but only later would we know that it was just the calm before the storm.
And so finally there we were, the four of us in the limelight, we fiinished our presentation and after that came the question round. After two or three customary questions which we were able to answer convincingly, our guide wanted to take charge of the show. We saw her talking to Ashok sir, the most dreaded guy in the panel of profs there. It was the beginning of the end for us. It was rapid fire for us. This was what followed...

Rejil : Your project topic says ' Speed Control of Induction Motor using Indirect Vector Control'. Tell us what you have done
We: We have done the hardware part of the sinusoidal PWM and it is working fie

Rejil : Where's the Speed Control of Induction Motor, where's the indirect vector method??
Is there some result that you can show me??
Funda : " This cannot be simulated in Matlab or any software for that matter"...he said emphatically...

There was a moment of silence in the room as the panelists pondered over it..within few seconds Ashok shot back
Ashok : You say its not possible in Matlab... is it? Well...I will show you that the same has been simulated . It can be done... he said with arrogance.
Left with no words , we were silent for a moment.
Rejil : As per your report, you have only written what can be done. you have any results or outputs to show us?
Again we could only be silent.
Then came the last nail in the coffin.
It was Rejil again: You say your topic is "Speed Control of Induction Motor using Indirect Vector Control" and you haven't done anything to justify the topic. You people don't even have any results to show us. We are not convinced. We would like you to discuss with your guide and get back to us in a day or two......

That was it!!!!, we were defeated...our worst fear had come true. We walked out of the hall with bowed heads, both indignant and sad. There was an outburst of both just outside so that she could hear it. We invited the empathy of all our classmates who were also furious...but there was nothing to be done...the very person who was to help us had taken her rage out on us...we thought. We even thought that we would have to stay back the next year for project...in NITC you never know..All the jobs and dream jobs just seemed so distant to us. When the initial surge of all the emotions settled, we had a meeting with our guide and she asked us to come up with a simulation..Back in the hostels, the news spread like wildfire. REPEAT in PROJECT !!!..it was unheard of in the history of the college...and our guide soon entered the hitlists of all our juniors...the very fact that noone did a project the next year under her is the evidence.

We burnt the midnight's oil (in fact funda did!!!) and were able to come up with some sort of a simulation by the next day morning. All over the college people were bidding adieu to each and everyone they saw,...peons, canteen guys..et al..and were struggling with the proj..in fact a struggle to pass out with the rest...Some sort of a simulation was made up...When we went to demonstrate the same, it would not work in the computer there. Then we took the harddisk (which was full of unsolicited material, as is the case with all of the same kind in colleges) in which we had done it..and took a laptop just in case. Our guide wanted an external evaluator for the project and she asked us to choose between Vaidyan , a very naive person and Rejil, who had butchered us the previous day. By instinct we chose the former and managed to show him what we had done. We finally came out with a big PHEW to the joy of our good friends who were waiting ouitside. We had done it..and we were on cloud nine !!!

After all that we settled ourselves to the last one or two days in college..and with all the time we had left there...we were busy copying photos from first year onwards..Gigabytes of photos and songs that we would take back after the four years...As far as the project was concerned, we did manage to get a B, it was a great moment to reckon. By then all the fury and anger at the guide had vanished..or at least it was not explicit. An what more could you ask for..after all "All's well that ends well'. Looking back..it was a different experience..and experince no doubt is the best teacher. Thus did end a chapter in our lives too, the wonderful four year vacation called B.Tech...