(all names are fictitious)
This 4th year first semester Chemical Engineering (ChemE) process lab was a drab. Absolutely boring, useless, and hopeless crap! We were supposed to make nitrobenzene from benzene, purify water, evaluate efficiency of fractional distillation, and do similar useless lab experiments that nobody cared about. Some enterprising folks from our batch tried to convince the department to include in the curriculum an experiment of distillation of ethyl alcohol from water. But when that idea was shot down (despite potential opportunity to learn superior ChemE processes), everybody lost interest in this lab. Besides, this lab was in the afternoon, the time when all hostelers are supposed to catch up with sleep, so that one could play bridge the entire night, or chase girls at Y-point, or simply drink alcohol and submerge oneself into Ghalib’s shayari at midnight.
But then SM made nitrobenzene one afternoon and turned this hopeless, boring, useless lab into a scary, funny, “holy shit”, “WTF” lab in approximately 0.4 seconds.
Story began that morning. Professor HS Mani started handing over the second test paper of CHE401 Reaction Engineering course back to students. In the first test, SM had received only 6 marks out of 20, well below average. SM tried to get an additional couple of marks. He complained that his pen slipped and wrote a wrong answer. Yes, SM did use such ridiculous excuses! Such ultra-creative, unbelievable reasoning had worked in the past for him. But Prof Mani did not oblige. Then SM tried some nonsense, emotional blackmail with teary eyes. That did not work either. Now today SM was concerned, anxious and worried about the second test. He had come prepared to negotiate better marks. He even wore his best polyester pants and shirt in the class. When SM approached Prof Mani’s table to collect the exam paper, Mani looked at SM through his thick lenses, and said in his Australian-cum-Tamil-cum-Bombayite accent, “Very good”. SM got 14 marks when the average was only 8.1. SM was confused, surprised and enthralled, all at the same time. He had no idea what to do. His preparations for negotiations were completely wasted. All SM could attempt was a nice flick to his neck and threw his hair back, exactly what Karsan Ghavari would do at the start of his long run-up as a bowler of Indian cricket team. SM came back to his seat, as if he were floating in thin air.
SM was on the sixth cloud when he landed in Hostel 5 for lunch. Hungry and elated, he completely ignored the taste of the freshly cut grass from the famous “Karkare garden” in Dal-Methi. He enjoyed powdery, sandy, overcooked cross-linked polymer, popularly known as “cement roti” in the hostel. He even commented to nearby folks that baking soda really adds great texture to the rice. SM ate and ate and ate to his heart’s content.
Although SM was a dedicated Chemical Engineer, he knew one or two things about biology. When one eats or “drinks” a lot, one goes to sleep. SM was obligated to follow biological principles. This 160-pound, 5 ft 10-inch, contented homo-sapien entered room number 159 and crashed on the bed in his polyester outfit, as if he had just landed in heaven. Spread on his tummy like Kumbhakarna, he dreamt of himself getting A grade in Mani’s CHE401 course, Ghavari getting 9 wickets in a Cricket test match, Professor Varma greeting him in the department lobby, four girls in tight jean pants dancing with him in Mood Indigo, and SM himself blocking Vora’s smashing hit in the inter-wing volleyball match.
He suddenly woke up among these amazing dreams! Iyengar was screaming from next door: “अबे SM, दो बज गया! लॅब को जाने का नहीं क्या?” SM’s blood was still swirling around his stomach trying to digest eleven cement rotis that he had consumed just one hour ago. His blood-starved brain did not register Iyengar’s screaming and he closed his half-opened eyes again. Iyengar now started banging SD’s door. SM woke up again, and realized that unfortunately, he is still part of the planet earth, somehow stuck in this harsh Kalyug, and he needs to rush to the ChemE Process Lab.
He grabbed his bag, stumbled out of the room, and started his long staggering, dazed walk towards the ChemE Lab.
SM entered the room with disheveled hair, crumpled but colorful polyester clothing, usual red color chappals and a dazed look. Chhota Raman was explaining the experiment. Chhota Raman was called chhota (small), because he was chhota compared not only to Bada (big) Raman but compared to almost everybody else in the ChemE department. Chhota Raman looked at SM with disgust and informed him that students can not arrive late in the class. Then he continued his instructions: “In the mixture, start adding benzene very slowly, not allowing temperature to rise beyond 60C. Once you finish adding benzene, remove sulfuric acid from the bottom of the flask. Wash resulting nitrobenzene with distilled water to improve the yield. Later, use a distillation column to separate water, and extract pure nitrobenzene. I need to know how you estimated the yield.”
SM whispered in Bewada Rana’s ears. “Bewada, which mixture?” Rana replied, “Sulfuric acid and Nitric acid”. SM was still confused with a few very basic questions. “Why Sulfuric acid?”, “How do I mix it?” But there was not enough time. Everybody was very eager to get out of this stupid lab. SM took 30 ml of nitric acid and added some sulfuric acid in a round bottom flask. He was always taught to stir the mixture to make it homogenous. He found a glass stick on the countertop next to him and started stirring. He heard the cracking sound of the glass from the flask. He peeped inside. The stirrer was broken. And within a second, it daunted upon him that he is staring at the thermometer in his hand, and not a stirrer. All the shiny globules of mercury were also staring back at SM from the bottom of the flask.
SM immediately looked at Chhota Raman. He was busy helping Alka, telling her, “Keep adding benzene, but do it slowly, Oooook!” SM was still sleepy. He knew that somebody would eventually help him to create some fictitious calculations at the end. So, he shrugged and started adding benzene in the flask. Slowly this yellowish liquid mixture started boiling. He asked Bewada, “इसको थंडा कैसे करने का?” By the time his question was uttered, BOOM! The whole mixture exploded with a big bang. The hot liquid splashed in the lab, Debris flew all over and everybody screamed and ducked. Chhota Raman’s thick eyeglasses fell on the ground, a couple of guys started running to the door, and Bewada saw that the broken flask was somehow sticking to the roof. He shouted,” Hey, watch out!!!” In a weird way, everybody was mesmerized and started looking up. SM also started looking up.
Flask came crashing down between Bewada and SM. Both made a weird quack-like sound and jumped like a frog. Everybody was now looking at scattered pieces of the glass flask. And this is the first time, the whole lab noticed that SM IS ON FIRE. SM was on fire. SM was on fire. SM was really on fire. Even Chhota Raman without eyeglasses saw it. Commotion ensued and only then it reckoned upon SM that SM IS ON FIRE. SM observed himself as if he is some third, separate person. Few guys started looking for water. Somebody shouted, “Watch out! Do not throw sulfuric acid on SM instead of water!” Meanwhile, SM frantically started removing shirt buttons, somebody ran to the next room to fetch some water from the bathroom sink.
Did this explosion happen because of formation of secondary and tertiary nitrobenzene at high temperature? Who knows? Even Chhota Raman did not have the answer.
When eventually SM’s shirt and banyan were removed, SM realized the burning sensation on his left thigh. He looked at his pants. There was a big hole to the pants and probably acid must have penetrated to his skin. SM screamed, “Oh shit!” Bewada came running and helped him to remove his pants. Burning sensation was intense. Somebody screamed, “Bring first aid box! There may be Burnol in the box.” Meanwhile, water was brought in and people started throwing it on SM’s feet.
Imagine this historic visual! In the best engineering institute of India, established by the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru himself in 1960, in the middle of the most prominent Chemical Engineering Department, SM aka Karasan Ghavari is sitting on a stool just on the underwear. For the first time in the history of Indian Academics, student’s pants are willingly removed in full display of the public. Some colleagues are sprinkling water on this student, as if Lord Shiva’s Maha-Abhishek is being conducted. Lord Shiva himself looks totally dazed, not knowing if there is any additional Ganga going to come crashing down from the roof on his head.
As commotion settled down, Chhota Raman suddenly remembered that SD would need clothes. He asked, “Is there anybody who stays in SM’s hostel? Can you get his clothes quickly?” Nanya volunteered. He took SM’s room keys and ran out to fetch some vehicle to go quickly to Hostel 5. He found one freshie going back to the hostel on one-sitter scooty. Nanya gave him keys and told him to get SM’s clothes quickly from his room. Freshie said, “Are yaar, why are you troubling me?” Nanya told him, “Hey, this is freaking very serious matter. SM was really on fire. I will tell you the story later.” Puzzled freshie ran away to the hostel.
Meanwhile, Professor Ram entered the room and asked, “What is going on there?” In reality, there was nothing going on “there”. Topless SM on underwear was happening right “here”, 7 feet from Professor Ram. But Prof Ram was called “Ram There” for a reason. He would use the word “there” in a random manner all the time. For example, he would say, “There are many interesting organic compounds there, such as benzene there, methane there, propylene there and so on there”. Chhota Raman still could not resist and said, “Not “there” sir, right here in front of you, sir.” SM was dazed, embarrassed, scared and was losing patience, especially in front of the only woman student in this lab. He was also getting angry, a totally unfamiliar emotion for SM. He said to Prof Ram, “I was feeling hot. So, I removed all my clothes.” Prof Ram was a gullible but an experienced teacher. In his IIT career, he had seen Gali (cursing) fights in Hostel 5, students copying in exam from Perry’s 1,375-page Chemical Engineering Handbook, and even had eaten cement roti with Dal-Methi in Hostel 5 as a warden. But this sight of SM was something in a different league. He did not know whether to believe SM there or look around for the mess in the lab there, or just ignore and leave the place there.
Meanwhile, Freshie Kumar just landed in Hostel 5. As he opened SM’s room, Iyengar from next door asked, “SM, तू जल्दी आ गया!” Kumar replied, “This is not SM. I am here to take SM’s clothes”. Iyengar screamed, “WHAT?” Kumar said quietly, “SM was on fire!” Iyengar screamed again “WHAT?”. Kumar repeated, “Nanekar told me that SM was on fire.” In this story, until now, I have requested you to imagine the visual of topless SM on underwear in the most prominent lab in the country and Professor Ram There’s face when SM told him that he removed clothes because he was feeling hot. But I cannot request you to even imagine Iyengar’s face when he heard that SM was on fire. All the best to you and your imagination!
Fast forward by three decades. One day in 2013, SM suddenly saw one vaguely familiar face in his subdivision in Boston while he was walking on the sidewalk. That person exclaimed, “SM!”. SM exclaimed, “Raman!” When they hugged each other, they quivered in memory of the past interactions. Nobody had to utter a word about the benzene explosion. Some things are best left unspoken!
Nitin Anturkar
