Memories of The 1959 - 1964 Batch of Alagappa Chettiar College of Engineering and Technology Karaikudi Table of Contents Editor’s Note. 01 Group Photo Taken in 1963 02 Anwarudeen. K M 04 Chakrapani. N 08 Chidambaram. A L 16 Chidambaram. C T 17 Chinni Krishnan. S 19 Karunanidhi. R 23 Krishnan. S Ph.D 30 Madaswamy. S 32 Manickavasagam. S 53 Natarajan. S V 58 Rajagopalan. A 68 Ramakrishnan. C V Ph.D 71 Ramesh Babu @ Ramesh Shamrao 80 Sahadevan. M 82 Photo Plates ACCET Exhibition Notice - 1961 85 Farewell address to Mr. D.S. Venkanna, Principal 86 Alagappa Tamil Sangam Programme Notice - 1961 87 Chidambara Natarajan, as a college girl! 89 and Thenappan dressed to kill! Get together in MRC, Chennai 90 LIG House Group photo 1960 91 From the Pages of My Autograph - 1964 92 Editor’s Note The journey started from June/ July of 1959. Selected students from all parts of India came to join the five year integrated course in engineering in Alagappa Chettiar College of Engineering and Technology (ACCET). For all of us it was like a home away from home. Hostel facilities were very good. Mess hall was veritably a diner’s delight. Vegetarian and non-vegetarian food were excellent and at what cost, you can’t imagine these days. Hold your breath, the monthly mess bill was less than seventy five rupees! With that money one can’t think of a square meal these days. The Faculty was dedicated. Both science and engineering subjects were taught by stalwarts in each subject. Life couldn’t have been better. All this was possible because of the munificence of Dr. R M Alagappa Chettiar, founder of the college. He had a grand vision to establish a world class university. It was with that aim, he started schools and colleges in a sprawling campus. We salute him for all that he had done to the cause of education. We the 1959-64 batch left our foot prints in the sands of time. Most of the surviving members of the batch along with their spouse and family members gathered to celebrate the Golden Jubilee year. It was a solemn occasion. We spent some time remembering the good old days spent fifty years back! Time available to exchange details was very little. Naturally there was too much to tell and too little time. It was then I thought why not bring out a coffee table book containing a glimpse of each and every one. It would be wonderful if the details come from the individual himself. I used some friends as a sound board to know their views. The feedback was encouraging and that’s how this idea sprouted and the result is in your hands. It is as much your product. I have only acted as a facilitator. I haven’t touched the text supplied by the respective authors! Here and there, I might have used my skills to correct spelling or some grammar, nothing beyond that. The narration has been left untouched. While going thorugh the naration of our friends you get the feeling of walking with the giants! It’s a bliss. To quote: “,r;Rit jtpw ahd; Ngha; ,e;jpuNyhfkhSk; mr;Rit ngwpDk; Ntz;Nld; muq;fkhefUshNd” I sincerely thank all those who gave me a helping hand to complete the work in time. My special thanks to Mr. G. Soundhar and Mr. R. Rajnarayanan of Hard n Soft Technologies Pvt. Ltd., for patiently doing the layout and cover design. S. Manickavasagam 1 MEMORIES OF THE 1959 - 1964 BATCH OF ACCET KARAIKUDI Photograph taken at the party given to the Professors and Staff of the Departments of Mathematics, Geology, Physics and Chemistry by 4th Year Students of ACCET on 03.03.63 The Persons in the above photograph are identified in the next page 2 The Spelling of the names is retained as printed in the original photograph Left to Right Sitting: R. Subramani, S. Muthukaruppan, S. M. O. Md. Haneefa, N. C. Krishnaswamy, R.Padmanabhan (Manager), Prof. R. Sridhar Rao (Electrical), Prof. A. V. Raghavachar, (Mech), Prof. M. K. Venkataraman (Maths), Principal P. S. Manisundaram, Prof. N. S. Rajagopalan (Physics), Prof. D. S. Sundararama Rao (Chemistry), Prof. K. V. Krishnaswamy (Geology), Prof. W. P. Vijayaraghavan (Civil), M. Meenakshisundaram, S. Pandarakkutti, P. A. Rajamanickam, V. Balasubramaniam Standing Row 1: M. Kunchithapatham, T. Thirumeni, M. Sahadevan, N. Venkatachalapathy, R. Sundaresan, V. Ramadass, K. Subramanian, Nr. Noor. Md. Khan Ghouse, S. V. Natarajan, A. M. Mohanraj, V. C. Swaminathan, M. Subramania Pillai, G. Rengaswamy, V. Chidambaram, C. R. Chandrasekaran, K. Mariappan, S. H. Syed Ameenudeen, C. V. Ramakrishnan, J. Sornam, Row 2: M. Annamalai, CT. Chidambaram, K. Paramanandam, A. Kumaravel, P. Rengaswamy, T. K. Srinivasan, S. Kannnan, K. Ragupathysubramaniam, AL. Chidambaram, K. Vedachalam, N. Chakrapani, T. M. Ganesan, G. Rajangam, C. Suriyamurthy, S. Lakshminarayanan, T. Govindarajan, A. Venkatachalam, P. Aravindan Row 3: Sathappan, S. Krishnan, PL. Ramanathan, A. K. Srinivasan, V. Venkatasubramanian, V. Ramaswamy, G. Chidambaranatarajan, S. Krishnaiyan, P. Venkatasubramaniam, M. Thenappan, A. Krishnanmurthy, S. Parasuraman, Chandru Gobindram, P. Sudarsanam, P. Somasundaram, S. Madaswamy, K. Subramanian, V. Kumaraswamy Row 4: J. Dwarakan, P. Ramakrishnan, K. Rajagopalan, S. Subramanian, L. Annamalai, K. M. Anwarudeen, S. Krishnamurthy, N. Sethuraman, G. Rajagoplan, S. Pothiraj, N. Sundarajan, N. Pattabhiraman, S. Chinnikrishnan, R. S. Sankarasubramanian, A. Maruthachalam, V.Rangachari, S.Manickavasagam Row 5: A. Rajagopalan, Thomas M. Pothan, S. R. Sarma, R.Srivatsawan, A. Deivamani, N. Vijayaraghavan, M. Swaminatharao, R. Karunanithi, V. Rajagopalan, P. Sundararaj, V. Marikkannu, A. D. Rajandran, George Joseph Thanaraj 3 MEMORIES OF THE 1959 - 1964 BATCH OF ACCET KARAIKUDI ANWARUDEEN. K M My first employment was at Kodayar Hydro Electric Project, Lower camp. It was a very nice place. My office was at the bank of the water falls in the hill forest. I was not a poet to float in the dreamy world. Such a beautiful place with cool climate. But the management procedures & the systems were not for my liking. I thought I should go for a job with private companies. I managed to get transfer to Madras at Basin Bridge Thermal Power Station. I knocked many doors right from Ennore Foundries in North Madras to small companies in Guindy Industrial Estate in south Madras. As I was working in shift I could find time to hunt for the job. During this endeavor I realized that the private companies do not consider the experiences with EB as worthy. I got married in 1968. Out of many interviews I attended one gave fruit. It was Madras Refineries Ltd (MRL). I appeared for supervisory post interview, but they offered me only workman post. I took this as an avenue to escape from EB & I joined MRL. It was a down fall in my carrier. MRL was started in collaboration with an American company. So the management was better. My job was purely technical; no weekly reports, explanations, memos, & other clerical jobs. I solved many technical problems in the power plant. I was appreciated with all adjectives (reflection of American culture). After some years I found that the benefits like promotions & salary increments were shared by a group of people (reflection of our culture). Out of dejection I asked for a transfer to another section which involves lesser risky working condition & responsibilities. My boss said that there was no vacancy in that section; but vacancy was available in another unit wherein only chemical engineers can work. I took it as golden chance to escape from him, I immediately accepted the transfer. He thought I would stay back with him. 4 So I was transferred to lube unit (Refining section of lubricating oils). All the chemical engineers raised their eyebrows as to how I could fit the post. My new boss also questioned my sincerity to work there. I convinced him & accepted the challenge. I was in training period for 3 months. I had to do lot of home work for learning Petro Chemical Engineering. I finally passed the test. (God promise; there was no question paper leak & no bits). And I took charge of the lube unit. One day a manager of maintenance department came to the control room & asked me to spare some time to talk with me. We went to the dining room. He offered me cigarette & both were chatting. He asked me to come to maintenance department. I was shocked. I told him “Look Mr.-----, though I am qualified in mechanical I have experiences only in power generation & lube block operations. I don’t know anything about maintenance of gigantic compressors & pumps. Moreover workmen in maintenance are tough guys. It is not an easy thing to sail with them. Really I do not know whether I can work in maintenance.” Then he said “ When you can take charge in lube unit it is very easy to work in maintenance. Because operation is working with live plant where as in maintenance you will be working with dead plant. After initial hiccup it will be easy to manage with men & material. What I want is your sincere involvement with the job. I know you have this trait.” I agreed for the next challenge. After a month, I was transferred to maintenance. Latter I came to know that the delay for the transfer was due to tug of war between manufacturing manager & maintenance manager; manufacturing manager was not willing to release me. During this tenure in maintenance department I solved some perennial problems of some pumps by simple modifications in design. One cannot explain the joy of achievement unless it is experienced. I was applying for overseas appointments, because I was getting delayed promotions here.