The Importance Of Being Earnest
Authors: Aditi A Pujar, Divyoj Singh, Bhoomika A Bhat, Akshara Sharma, R Bangari
Life at IISc is a vibrant fabric in which the threads of so many lives come together. To us students, if “all the world’s a stage”, no longer is a teacher the only central character in our daily lives.
From being saved at the brink of starvation by the Tuck Shop or printing out entire lab reports (which are all virtuously original, with no manipulation of data, of course) at the Campus Xerox Centre, we’ve seen it all; done it all. But despite all the times Kabini indulges our laziness to walk all the way to mess, and the Cycle Repair Shop is our salvation, we often hurry past the people who make it possible. The sheer amount of time they might have spent in the haven that is IISc, the stories they might be teeming with, is overlooked.
So, in 2018, Quarks decided to do exactly that: we ferreted around after these guardian angels, (annoying them to no end), only to stumble upon story after story; reminiscence upon reminiscence; life upon life.
Mr. Seetharam: Tuck Shop Owner
Mr Seetharam is literally the one true knight-inshining-armour to all undergraduates in distress. One of the most famous people among the UG populace, Seetharam aka. Tuck Shop Uncle, started off with his business at IISc about 10 years ago. A resident of Bangalore for nearly 16 years, he has seen the undergrads right from the beginnings of the program.
Taking off only on Sundays and in case of some unexpected emergency, Mr. Seetharam has all the essentials that students need, as he himself says, “I have everything from pins to pens.” He says students who study till late in the night and end up missing their breakfast (read every UG student ever) usually come to his shop, and so he always keeps fresh stock of sandwiches and burgers. For the convenience of his customers, who are majorly students, Mr. Seetharam accepts not just cash but also online payment; moreover he is affectionate enough to let students buy on credit.
With a good expertise in Kannada, over years, he has learnt English, Hindi and a bit of basic Bengali, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam and spends his free time reading newspapers or books. As a hobby, he practices Palmistry and Astrology. The Tuck Shop is indeed an oasis for us hapless, hungry (not to mention, broke) undergrads.
Mr. Narasimhaiya: Cycle Repair Shop owner
As students of IISc (ahem - motorised vehicles are banned - ahem), we simply cannot do without our cycles or cycle servicing. For the past six years or so, Narasimhaiya has been here for us every day of the year. Native to Bangalore, cycle repairing became his profession by tradition. His thirty-five years of experience in the profession notwithstanding, Narasimhaiya feels privileged for having his business at IISc. While he stays engrossed in his cycles all day, he enjoys interacting with his customers, especially the students. He is a perfectionist and admits that he takes more time to service the cycles for the same reason.
While he sometimes feels he could have had a more flourishing business elsewhere, he considers being at IISc a privilege, and says the job satisfaction here in unparalleled.
Mr. Ravi: Kabini Canteen
“You can never spend more than Rs. 100 per person at Kabini” is a dictum of the holy scriptures. Kidding of course, but it is a universal truth no less.
The canteen has been running for around eight years and has served everyone; students and staff alike. In the manager, Mr. Ravi’s own words, “it is one of the places where you get good food at an extremely subsidised price. Despite a limited menu, it remains one of the most popular student eateries.”
For all the times we did not want to walk to mess for meals, for every curse we have hurled at the geniuses who planted the messes so infernally far away, Kabini is our solace.
Mr.Janardhan: Notebook Drive
Starting 14 years ago, Mr. Janardhan has helped Notebook Drive every year by driving his rental truck out to schools to distribute notebooks to local schools for the underprivileged. Covering up to 10 schools per day, he is a shining example of how the aam aadmi make a difference to another human life.
“We’re given a list of schools every day, along with the books to be delivered by NBD. We just plan out our route so that we hit each school within their session timings and finish the distribution as quickly as possible”, he says. “Even if we get higher pay, even ₹10,000 elsewhere, I always bring my truck here first during that week, regardless of the fare.”
He has even delivered computers to schools in the previous years, amongst other material for the benefit of the school children’s education. His collaborative efforts with the NBD are truly invaluable.
Mr. Ravichandran: Xerox Center
While Ravichandran has been at IISc, for more than three decades, the Campus Xerox Centre has only (only!) been running for the past twenty years. He started out at a draftsman, (after having completed a year of apprenticeship at the BEL) at the Electrical Engineering Department. He then had a two year stint at the JRD Tata Memorial Library whereupon he was encouraged to open a Xerox Centre; it was sorely needed.
The tidal waves of change he has seen “are not little, it has been change upon change”. He starts with how almost everything is now electronic and automated, rather than manual and walks us through the analog-to-digital revolution. “Every technology (from the glory days of the typewriter and liquid Xerox to those of floppy disks, CDs), every process has undergone a drastic shift.”
Simply in terms of manpower, at the beginning, Ravichandran employed twelve to thirteen operators. This was required as the facilities were so primitive; something as simple as back to back printing had to be manually fed twice and inverted. Ten copies would have to be printed out manually as many times. “Technology has now advanced such that a single person can handle three to four machines- in fact I handle as many myself” he chortles.
Then with a sombre expression, he says “As a result of all these advancements, a student’s thesis gets printed, bound and done with in a span of two hours. Back then, it would be a two month affair. A real relationship would develop with each student.”
Even as he speaks, a student gives her thesis on a pen drive and asks him in broken Kannada if she can collect it the next day. He replies in the affirmative (in perfect English, might I add) and out she walks.
He continues, the nostalgia heavy in his voice, “They (the students) would bring a couple of pages each day, handwritten. They would sit with me and dictate as I keyed it in, rectifying mistakes along the way. They would then go back and show the day’s draft to their professor, get it corrected. Then return the next day with edits and more pages to key in. Once the final copy was keyed in, they would get multiple Xeroxes of it.”
He speaks of the trifling troubles they faced too: for the cover page of the thesis, they required “glossy” papers called dressing sheets that were only available with a vendor outside campus; getting the cover printed was a three day affair. Moreover, different fonts were not possible as all the typing was done with one typewriter; one need only look at old documents in the library archives for evidence.
He then speaks of how mathematical symbols were printed, a slightly cumbersome matter to this day. It is in equal amounts both, appalling and amazing. In the typewriter, there would be a feature to insert different “wheels” containing various special symbols. A Dizzee wheel was one that contained mathematical symbols. So, for a simple ‘α’, one could either write it out manually everywhere it appeared (for brackets, this was the only option), or even more painstakingly: type it out multiple times with the wheel, cut each one of them out into tiny pieces and paste it everywhere it appeared.
He then goes on to speak about typesetting, hailing LaTeX “your generation is so privileged, you even have some software to format your stuff for you!” , while reminiscing about how it used to be: initially in typewriters, there was no right justification, neither was there any proportional spacing between the letters, i.e. the letters ‘i’ and ‘w’ would take the same amount of space. This increased the paper usage by almost two times. Moreover, pasting bits and pieces like the aforementioned ‘α’ added to the overall bulk of a document.
The sheer human labour leaves us incredulous. The above begs the question, what did one do for graphs back then? Ravichandran is a trained mechanical draftsman; he would therefore take the rough scribbles students would bring and draw a neat, proportional graph by hand. Multiple copies would then then taken via Xeroxing. In such cases, he also used stencils in a technique called stencil cutting and duplicating to trace out alphabets onto the graph (they couldn’t be keyed in with a typewriter). Requisite “slots” (silhouettes) would be cut out; rolled up and ink passed through.
He then says, with pride strengthening his voice, “I must have seen thousands of theses in my life so far, so intimately. I would even be acknowledged in the document. So many students have now become big professors and hold prominent administrative positions. Many of them even come back sometimes, make small talk. You see, they do not forget.”
From when he was working well past midnight as a draftsman at Electrical Engineering or slaving over a student’s thesis to handling four machines single-handedly, Ravichandran’s single-minded dedication to his work is very apparent. It has even rubbed off on his assistants too; “the boys are so sincere that they are reluctant to take off even on festivals and holidays”.
He then takes a trip down IIScian memory lane: “The IISc of thirty-five years ago was very different. There was only one tiny hostel for women then. Initially, we set up the Xerox Centre at Gymkhana. But then on popular demand”, he grins, “we moved to a more accessible place: Union Office, near Nesara. Then, twenty years ago, we moved to this location.”
Like every baby boomer, he too takes a minute and goes on the “aaj kal ke bacche” rant. He speaks of the increasing impatience in Gen Y. He laments the loss of skill too: of penmanship and artistry- “especially as a draftsman, it is saddening to see this. We used so many instruments, for so many different types of drawings: isometric, orthogonal… It is all obsolete now, in a time when everything is increasingly being taken for granted” The wistfulness is still apparent as Ravichandran yet again says “we used to work together with the students. I literally and metaphorically had a hand in their theses. Four hours a day would be devoted to solely this. Students would often take me out for a stroll and some tea at the end of a day’s grueling work”. Even as he speaks, he is finished with binding another manuscript. “Well, this is how your Campus Xerox Centre has come to be. This is how I’ve spent my whole life: at IISc.”