SBST Remembered

This is in continuation and supplementing the piece I wrote for SUBSTANCE. Which I did not get a copy yet(Nirmit, listening?).

School of Building Science and Technology, the place we love to hate. We hate it when we are required to wrote another exam after proving once that we are not interested in exams altogether. Case in point, supplementary exams or simply ‘supplie’. We hate it when we are made to go over the monotony of a subject again or a whole year again, when we have proven that it does not interest us at all. Rule-makers will argue that it is all for a good cause, for preparing us for Life. Whatever. We hate it when, we are made to show our ingenuity in reproducing assignments done at some previous time, by somebody who showed his ingenuity in turn by reproducing another’s work. We hate it when we have to compromise a peaceful night’s sleep to stay up and draw line on an ‘ultra-white’ sheet of paper, light-to-dark, top-to-bottom using different grades of pencil lead. Never a 0.5mm lead, mind you. We hate it when we get a marksheet in our hand and the Enlightened ones compare their marks with us, lesser mortals. We hate it when these enlightened ones get better grades for the same thing scribbled on the answer sheet. We know it’s the same thing, because its copied from the Enlightened’s paper, with our valuable inputs as well. Come on. We hate it when we have to spend our weekends eating cement at some bungalow being made for some rich ass. And listen to the life’s sorrows of the guy called ‘site-engineer’. We hate it when we have come for a four-month vacation to explore a new city and they make us write reports running into hundreds of pages every month. We also hate it when we expect to relax after four-and-a-half years of relentless toil in studios and sites and we are made to report to the ‘grand-old-man’ of SBST every month of what we could not achieve in the last month.
We hate SBST for many reasons, some of them material and some of them relating to people who claim to run this place. But we love this place for the same reasons. We will remember this place fondly for the same reasons. Not convinced? Let me explain.
We love it when after putting in real extra work, we manage to have more marks in the final marksheet than some of our sort who managed to scrape through at the first attempt. Its fair considering that we put in a semester more of back-breaking hard work than them. We love it when we are applauded for a reproduced assignment when all that we have done is show advanced skills of MsWord. We love to compromise our sleep for a visit to VS for maska-bun and chai in the name of staying up for ED-BCD. We love to stay up the nights, studying, before an exam for some more maska-bun. And still looking for the prying eyes of Rajendrabhai(name to be read in his accent only) to look the other wayin the exam hall. We love to go for ‘field studies’ and learn the tricks of tricking the site-in-charge. And obviously, keeping an eye on the phone for any news of a surprise visit by the faculties. We love to go to a new city and look for new places to quench our thirst. Especially Gujarat being so ‘dry’. And at site, wearing a helmet and safety belt for the first time and feeling,’at last I feel like an engineer.’ We love the four months of freedom from classes and anticipating the day of complete freedom from the bondage.

As the day comes closer, the anticipation increases. Till finally it arrives. We suddenly find that , all that we have lived for is over. Just simply over. It is the end of a life. A part of life, Enlightened ones would say. But these five years are a full life lived, and maybe more. The life had much more than what I could think of and put to words. It had many things more which if I start to pen down, will get monotonous, as we all have experienced these things and are experiencing now(juniors..). And there are some things which cannot be mentioned at a public platform.

Personally, SBST remains a place where I found friends for a lifetime. The period is mainly concerned with episodes we had together. Without them, especially living away from home, would have made this…I dread to think what. After all that, the final year has been a perfect climax. The council days made me see life in a new way. The joy of achievement was interspersed with the feeling of disgust and disgrace sometimes. Only to be lifted to another level of contentment in a short time. There were many things which I set out to do, but found I had to select. Some things I pulled off, but the revolutionary ideas I had, remained just that..ideas.
It is now that I realize what I have gained in five years and what I lost after that. Life has come a full circle. I have come back to where I began. It has to be a new beginning now. A beginning of much better things I hope. There are memories and memories. Some are forgotten as time passes and some remain as if they happenend just yesterday. These years are certainly part of the latter.

Aisi Karni Kar Chalo,
Tum Hasso
Jag roye.