This is a story from my Engineering college days.
Time: Summer of 2000

Characters

1) Edwin: BE 2nd year - Electrical and Electronics major

2) Andrew: BE 2nd year - Electronics and Communications major

3) Chriz (Me): BE 2nd year - Electronics and Instrumentation major

This incident happened 16 years ago. Back then, none of us knew that all 3 of us would be working in IT firms in 2016; nothing to do with our core majors. But who cares? Engineering days gave us great memories in college.

In our college there were four departments

1) EEE - This was like the mechanical department of other engineering colleges. The terror boys of our college were from this department. The department boasted of some of the best singers, dancers and sportsmen; but it did not have a single studious student. You can't find a single proper looking girl in this department. Our Edwin is from this department

2) ECE - This department had an equal balance of girls and boys. It was not the best department in college. But it had the best lecturers in our college. Andrew belonged to this department.

3) CSE - The department of the babes. The poshest babes and the cool dudes belonged to this department. So the rest of the department boys would be found loitering around the CSE class rooms all the time. None of our friends were from this department because we were not the cool dudes of the college. We were the local boys

4) EIE - Even till now I do not know why this department exists in the first place. After 4 years of being in this department, I have not figured out if this stream of engineering has anything to do with Instrumentation engineering or electronics engineering. I really do not know. But I survived there

Story


Edwin, Andrew and I were always fascinated by the computer lab in our college. Because none of us had the privilege to sit in front of computers and do cool stuff in the lab. When we walked past the computer lab, we would take a peep into the lab and see the babes in our college staring at the screens (Little did we know that we would be doing the same thing in 16 years time)

The labs we were exposed to had lathes, breadboards and multi-meters. We hated them and hence always longed to enter the computer lab. Those were the days when movies started coming in VCD format. The computer lab had a couple of computers with CD players. As we 3 were hostel mates, we decided to watch movies in those computers at night time.

Breaking into the computer lab was not an easy joke. There were only two ways to enter the computer lab

1) Through the computer lab main door
2) Through the sliding window of the lab

There is no way one could enter through the main door unless and until it is opened with a key. But entering through the sliding window was easy. All we had to do was use a small screwdriver to slide the window and enter the lab.

So one night after the dinner time was over, we 3 slipped out of the hostel and entered the computer lab. We made sure not to switch on the lights inside the lab as it would alert the watchman who walks around the college campus at nights.

Edwin had a "Hey Ram" CD in his hand. The movie was a new release and we were crazy fans of Illayaraja. We covered the window with a bed sheet so that light doesn't go out. We played the movie and started enjoying it and just when KamalHassan was about to bite Rani Mukherjee, the power went off.

All 3 of us did not know what to do, because when power outage happened in our college in the night, it would not be restored till morning. Our CD was inside the CD player and the name "Edwin" was written on the CD. So we decided to remove the CD.

But how would it be possible when there is no power?

Edwin suddenly said : Machi, we are Engineers da. We can solve anything

Andrew: But none of us are computer engineers

Prason: So what? We can at least try

We should not have had the above conversation; because the incidents that followed are still giving us nightmares.

To be continued in part 2

- Chronicwriter