Sweet Child of mine

It was his second year in Surathkal and he was still one of those well oiled nerds trying to get to the top of the class… lol!!! It was his fourth semester to be precise… We had a certain lab called AEC Lab. It was one of those things that never ever give an output. Besides considering his attendance in that lab he didn’t even harbour any hopes of getting an output… yet deep inside he somehow felt he knew the theory enough to squeeze his way through…
It was the middle of May and the exams were on… He had stayed up the whole night trying to cram the unnecessary details…
“Abbe… maa**** woh capacitor ka value kya tha be???”
“Oye mereko nahi pata yaar… mereko bhi is experiment ka output nahi aaya…”
“Abbe is experiment aayega to mera vaat lag jayega yaar”
“Jo bhi hoyege dekha jayega… sutta keliye aayege kya???”
“Abhe bho**** main to aaj mar jaoonga yaar”
He somehow managed to go through all the experiments… He was confident that even if he did not get an output he would smash the viva and write enough theory to clear the paper … But there was still that particular experiment… hell what is the probability of getting that experiment yaar… one in thirteen… worth a chance ditching it… howzaat???
It seemed the most logical thing to do… ditch that experiment… so ditch he did!!!
7 am and he was haunting the surroundings of the AEC Lab. Somehow he was strangely confident that he would get thought the lab without any major scars…
The system is strange… they keep the question papers hidden in the answer sheets and we were to randomly pick up any of those answer booklets… smarty that he was he decided to have the first pick…
" Design an RC Coupled amplifier… gain of… bandwidth of… components… …. … "
He couldn’t believe it… It was that friggin question that he hadn’t studied for at all.. he could see his entire family ( dads great grand dad included) abusing him … he felt like abusing them back loudly but I believe sensibility returns when its most unlikely… lol!!!!
He tried his hand at copying… he raced as fast as he could towards the one girl who couldn’t have possibly ditched it…
“You are the best woman ive ever set my eyes upon… please please tell me atleast the values of the components and il manage to write up an infinite deal of garbage”
“Shhh…. What a freak… 10pF , 22uF ,……….. give me your sheet I’ll write the formulae in pencil… use it somewhere”
“Oh …. You are a sweetheart… Thanks a million man… that ba***** is coming back … me scooting… Cadburys after exam…”
Now he had the answer.. no one could fail him… he felt a strange sense of whatever… He was on my way… lol!!!! He confidently went to his place … wrote an infinite deal of nothing inserting those formulae in conspicuous locations and making the presence of those magical numbers felt…
He submitted the paper and hurriedly rushed towards the attendant for the apparatus…. “10 picofarad” , he proudly said… and looked around … we nodded at him as if to say.. “way to go”.. atleast that’s what he thought…
Soon he was at his table trying to set up the circuit… an hour passed and then another… hope to despair is quite a long journey man … he was feeling really stupid… nothing that he tried seemed to be having an impact. He was at his wits end when he could hear , “Roll number 999… come for viva…”, he got up and walked slowly towards the external examiner…
“what is the bandwith that you have designed this for???”
“sir, 200 Mhz sir…”
“200 Mhz ?”
“Yes sir but i think it will work only for about 150 Mhz”
“150 Mhz??!!!???”
“ Sir the coupling capacitor…”
“No … answer to the point… what is this circuit's operating range??”
“ Sir in the formula I have substituted… 200 …”
“Ok son… that’s all ok… are you getting the output???”
“No sir”
“It isn’t really surprising… look at the circuit… do you see anything missing”
He felt like beating up the bald man … If he knew th answer, would he be mumbling…
“ Cant see the mistake sir…”
“ This is what is wrong with the younger generation I say… they refuse to tackle the problem… everything they need has to be given to them on a platter… “
“yes sir “
“what yes sir”
“sorry sir… “
More blah…
“yes sir”
“what??”
“no sir… sorry sir..”
Then the old man asked him the question that probably saved his subject..
“How much did you score in the theory last semester?”
“sir 82 sir…”
“ah… so u sill don’t see the mistake eh…”
He pretended to stare at the sheet and mumbled all the formulae including E=mc2 hoping to impress the professor… of course he made sure that the bald man dint hear anything he mumbled…

“Can I see your circuit??”
“Yes of course sir…”
He casually walks towards the breadboard… examines the mess of wires….
“Son you should be a little more judicious with these wires u know… you have used such long wires for these small connections… Its no wonder that you have overlooked something… well the circuit seems right although the one you’ve drawn is a little different…”
Our man was surprised… I mean how could he rig up a circuit correctly when he had no clue about it at all considering that the circuit that he copied was wrong…. He simply nodded nevertheless…
Well it was well past three hours now and he asked him to submit his paper.. He told him that he couldn’t take any readings…
The old man said, “Well I don’t know… lets see … its not that difficult an experiment..”
“yes sir… something is wrong…”
And he walked out of the hall… It was the first time he thought hed fail in a paper… Not a nice feeling… When he got outside all of us sympathized with him at having gotten such a difficult question…
“They’ll clear you man… uve got the circuit right…”
“But goddam it ive drawn it wrong in the sheet..”
“They’ll pass you man… don’t worry”
Nothing could console him…
Someone once had told him that beer is mans best friend when hes all down… so Mr.Beer beckoned him…
He went all alone to this place in Mangalore about 20 kilometres away… got himself drunk silly and somehow managed to get back to the hostel.I being his roommate was really surprised because I had never seen him drink in the two years I knew him… He just walked in with his typical ceaseless smile , grabbed my guitar and started screaming “sweet child of mine…”
We all welcomed another intelligent man who had been ruined by education into our community of “light drinkers” ….