:(

Quite a few days back, I was reading a column by Suhail Sheth. And he said something like, " never marry an electrical engineer, these guys deal with all those circuit things, quite a messy person indeed." Myself being a "to be" [hopefully] electrical engineer, will recommend the same. You can never know, he/she may seem to be the best person in the world in the morning, then in the evening, he/she may vent out all his/her frustrations on you. Why?? read on!!

An electrical engineer's ultimate fantasy is an electrical machine, let me clarify this jargon a bit. An electrical machine is a thingie that either rotates a shaft or steps up/down a voltage. There are three main kinds of electrical machines, that rotates a shaft. Their names are inconsequential. But all they do, is the same job, they make a shaft rotate. Why on earth then we need those three kinds where a single could have done well?? x( x(... perhaps to add a bit of burden on the "innocent" minds. xP

Electrical lab especially the machines lab is the "electrical engineers paradise".Here an electrical engineer learns to make things difficult. But then, engineering is all about making simpler things difficult. But electrical engineers are masters at it.

Today, it started at about 10:30. With four students gathering at the machines lab. " Fuck, we are starting with machines?". "Yessss",some heavenly voice spoke up. "If we are to do it then lets do it", " but there's no circuit diagram in the manual dude? how are you gonna make the connection?" " errrr!! no diagrams?"...so the day started.

Even if you had a connection diagram, to compare between the diagram and the actual connection is something like comparing between tomatoes and jelly fishes and a Robert Langdon must be called to decipher it. But, then they din have a diagram, so? lets head to the assistant.

" copy from the mother copies, that's how they do it, ppl here just come in,do nuthin, copy it from the mothers, and go away, Unless...."

there was a certain uncanny thing about this unless, which made the four to react quickly and somehow manage a mother copy. "So let's start"

they had copied only up to the first run, then a sudden flow of students came in, guess what? the chemical 2nd year has elab too, and the very next tables got occupied by teachers showing them stuffs, " non-dip" [thats how they say] after all.

Clock ticked 11:20, they stopped cheating because there are teachers all around, some even joking with them. All they had done is to copy the 1st run. Their teacher came in. " Test the continuity"- his majesty's order. " but sir!... we've already done it! here is it."-one among them shows the copy."Do it again".They started the test. "Fuck man!! it's analog multimeter, the scalings are in reverse order."- one among them said after they finished the test. "So perform it again"," done boss, the rest two are gonna be identical. Let's show it". "hmmm! what about the rest two???", " Sir! ntpl 59,60,61...same batch sir!! Gonna be the same!" "You never know, do it!!"- That's how you start making things difficult, electrical engineering demands you to vault your brain safely into the locker.

Clock ticks 11:40. They finished checking continuity of the transformer. " start polarity test", your demand is our command.Okay!! to tell you guys, this test is comparatively difficult.okay!! so there they go again. Repeating the same test for 3 transformers of the same batch.

Clock ticks 12:00...chemical 2nd year leaves leaving them behind. Now some electrical 2nd year joins the party. "Okay students! ready for the group operation"," hell ya sir!!!" ," sick b*****d, cud hav dun it an hour earlier", " Gosh!! I'm hungry! haven't taken anything for breakfast" " I feel sleepy man, haven't had a gud sleep!!" " Curse him!!"

Teacher:- " here u go. u connect this with this, and that with that, all positives with all positives...red wires moron!! and negatives blue... what r u doin??"

" connecting as u've said sir!!", " okay! go on!! remember ammeter in series, voltmeter in parallel", " done sir!"," power on!!!"," sir!! this ammeter is not showin any deflections"

" you morons!! check the connections", they check everything. "seems allryt na??" " I'm getting frustrated, gonna blow up sum1 today" [there u go, here it starts].

" hey whats the problem?"

" checked everything sir!! seems allryt"... teacher comes, checks " hmmmm!! ammeter seems faulty, get another one", they fetch another, " sir!! now the voltmeter!!" " eh???" " it aint showin deflection", sir comes!!! checks everything..." change the load box"... they change it... works finally... electrical 2nd year leaves the party...in comes electronics 2nd year... clock ticks 1:00...some of the 2nd year students stares sympathetically towards them.They managed some grins.

"only done the wye-wye"...go for "delta-wye...3 more ammeters... keep the voltmeter floating"," sir!! the voltmeter shows unbalanced condition","what??"...teacher too was getting a bit irritated..." faulty ammeter...change", " sir!! but still no deflection"

teacher: "what the hell is wrong with this lab?? every alternate instrument is faulty. How can the students perform the experiments??? even the transformers are messed up, one has to conduct tests on every individual one to ascertain their polarity.okay!! let me show you guys"

Teacher joins the party. After all he's an electrical engineer too. x).

after half an hour:

"my back's gonna get screwed up bigtime today, m drawin the diagram. You guys connect. I'll come later.Anything wrong... u gonna get marked absent"-teacher departs... they made the connections, and sat idle on the floor for 45 mins... after all its the residence of "Vishwakarma"...u can't just sit everywhere. Teacher returns on 2:30... they were pissed off... they haven't had a lunch break, they reached the lab sharp at 10:20 on a chilly winter morning ... they weren't given the opportunity to sit properly, to drink water... their thumbs are screwed bigtime by tightening screws... thousands of screws... some even required "plus" when they are attended by the assistants... and all they had ware bare hands... the teacher sees the sunken faces... they thought, " he had a lunch"...but big surprise... "here you go!! the Scott connection is the most difficult one, here's the diagram. short this this and this", he himself joins hands with the students...and almost spontaneously, " how you guys managed to tighten these screws?" ..."simple sir!! we didn't"...he stared in disbelief, " x da!! x da!!" x da comes.... " these screws can't be tightened by hands"... plus comes...struggle between man and machine starts...clock ticks 3:00..meanwhile these fellows weren't sitting idle, they were making the remaining connections... finally mankind wins... teacher gives a triumphant smile. " now conduct it"... after another series of faulty instruments they finally managed to cover thins up at 3:30... "erase all the markings","why sir??"," u guys did it, but y shud the next batch enjoy the benefit??" " okay sir" ... they realise that the teacher was feeling the same. They submitted everything.

"Dude! 1 st day of the new year!! and five sucking hours in the lab, can't stand it anymore. Goin back home" (allotted lab span is 3 hours, usually it takes no more than 2 hours, their friends were doing all kinds of interesting activities during this period)

" Can't go home now, have an urgent discussion on the fest"

" put Phunshuk Wangdu here, n he's gonna be a real flop."

"y??"

" arre!! u din see??? the thing he did with Lobo's project. He carried out some measurements, and found out where the error lies"

" ha!! so??"

" arre!! the instruments here won't give him any damn readings. The indicator loves the null marking. So, how will he carry out those measurements?? favorite subject machines eh??!! my foot!! "

" I'm gonna drain all my frustrations on sum1"

so there it goes...

If I get a chance I will jot down the "control systems lab" experience of another group. Judge it yourself.

We, electrical engineers are very messy kinda people..we do circuits and stuffs.