Classroom Nostalgia (at REC Warangal)
The New Academic Building (NAB) was the newest building at RECW — it was the place where the Computer Science Engineering (CSE) and Electronic & Communication Engineering (ECE) classes were held. Two floors with six large rooms, in theatre style seating, held classes for two branches across four years. Other than the hostel room and canteen, most of us would have spent significant time here. Some came to the NAB on their bicycles while others walked from the hostel. The computer center was very close to NAB and it was the place where most of our classmates made a sprint to, at the end of the classes.
The earliest memory of NAB is, watching out of the class windows to see if the Professor is walking down to take the class — different professors invoked different emotions — Prof RGR (late) was the most charming and popular — the girls had a crush on him (the popular telugu song Greek Veerudu was dedicated to him) while the boys were scared yet admired him. Prof VRR took Theory of Computation — I have neither figured out the subject nor the professor yet — no wonder I only cleared the subject in my 3rd attempt! T. Ramesh taught us data structures and the many of us are going in loops even now :-). Data structures was the first core computer science subject we took, and it gave me nightmares in the 2nd year! K. Ramesh’s lab was on Wednesday and many of us celebrated Wednesday evenings as weekends — because it was so stressful!
The way we sat in our class was not surprising — the boys on one side and the girls on the other. We had the maximum number of girls (16 in a class of 60) in any class in the history of RECW (till then) — this made the class gel together very well (even now) — though the interactions in the class between boys and girls were very limited, the lab ensured there was more camaraderie across gender lines. Pugalia, always sat in the same seat on the first row; Simi and Deepali always sat next to each other and so did Aparajita and Yamini; Suman sat in the last bench and always carried a novel to read (he started his CAT preparations ahead of everyone else!); KS Vivek was every Prof’s favorite; the three Suresh’s in our class were all silent toppers; and Iqbal was the entertainer — often escaping from one door (after the attendance) and reentering from the other! On the rare occasion when the Professors did not show up for a class, there was wild celebration — the boys dashed to the canteen and the sincere ones to the computer center. Srinivas Latha ran so fast to the computer center that she was nicknamed PT Usha. Occasionally, the guys indulged in throwing chalk at the girls, sometimes even the Prof’s were not spared! I would often sit in the last bench and find myself a misfit in a class full of brilliant minds. There I day-dreamt of somehow getting to the finish line in four years.
NAB was a place which made us proud — it was new and beautiful; we would show off the place to our friends and family when they visited us; it gave us the first lessons in computer science but more importantly built our character as young engineers. We attended and bunked classes together; we dreamt and hung out together; we walked and ran together; we argued and fought together; and eventually we got jobs, graduated and grew as young adults together. Everyone from our class has a memory that was built at NAB!
