The 1972-76 batch of REC/NIT Calicut has several memories etched in the history of the College. Majority of the students came from a rural background and many were travelling outside their home district for the first time in their life.

We may have started our professional studies at a very inauspicious time. There were only four hostels A, B, C and E. The A Hostel had an exclusively vegetarian mess and the first year students were accommodated in the A Hostel.

Ragging was a done thing in all the professional colleges of the time. The authorities too were aware of what was going on. But the raw young freshers were in for the shock of their life. We were perhaps subjected to perhaps the most inhuman ragging in the history of the college. The unsuspecting young boys were subjected to the worst kind of physical and mental torture. Some were even subjected to sexual assault too, scarring them for their life. There were even cases of the super seniors (those who had completed their course but staying in lodges to write their back papers) dragging the new comers to their lodges and assaulting them. What was worse, our own classmates who had joined a year earlier for the preparatory course also felt it their right to rag their own classmates.

Usually the ragging ended after a month but in our case it went on and on. The third year batch was away on study tour and when they returned they felt that they should not be denied their share of ragging.

The sexual and physical assault came to such a pass that many were ready to leave the college for ever. The authorities could no longer turn a blind eye and a decision was taken to dismiss some of the worst offenders. What followed would sound bizarre when we look back. The first strike ever in the history of the college was organised demanding that the offenders be taken back. The seniors asked our forgiveness and begged us to support the strike. I was one among the new batch to sit in dharna in the lobby of the Main Building in support of the strike.

In hindsight, Principal Bahauddin took a magnanimous view of the entire episode. The worst offenders were to leave but he helped them to be accommodated in other RECs like Ahmadabad. Some others were to be suspended for one year. The physical scars would have faded, but for some the mental scars remain to this day, even after 46 years.

The campus returned to normalcy, but we the first year students had to go on a one day strike soon. Little did we know that the day will remain in our memories for ever for a totally different reason. Most of us were from Kerala University and we were ordered to produce migration certificate to the new Calicut University which was not informed earlier.

Some of the boys decided to use the day off to have a swim in the nearby Chathamangalam River. As a leader, I stayed back to meet the Principal to inform him of the reason for the strike. I reached the river bank, two kilometres away, to witness the saddest scene in my life. My classmate Jacob D Madapattu who didn’t know swimming was caught up in a current and was sucked into the waters. I was in time only to see one hand raised in the water for help before it disappeared. All I can remember is running all the way back to College and informing the Principal. The authorities quickly swung into action. A massive search operation soon got underway, the like of which was never witnessed ever by the sleepy village. The whole village took part searching the river for kilometres downstream for the body. The whole college were spending the days on the banks of the river looking out for any signs of the young colleague.

The Indian navy was called in for help. They spread a dragnet under the Chathamangalam bridge, about three kilometres downstream and divers went into action. But it was a local villager who finally found the body. A post mortem was conducted at Calicut Medical College, the memory of which still remains with me. The body was brought back and placed in the auditorium for all to pay their last respects. The whole campus and the entire Chathamangalam village turned up in tears to see the mortal remains of the first student who had lost his life in an accident.

The body was taken to Changanacherry , Jimmy’s native place. We accompanied the body in the College bus To Changanacherry for the funeral. The loss of Jimmy was more personal for me since we were classmates in school at Kanjirapally. Jimmy owned a casette recorder, a novelty in those days and I used to spend most evenings in his room, listening to music.

We decided to do something to perpetuate his memory for ever. The Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad was in early days and many of our teachers like VK Damodaran, A Achutan, K Vincent Paul and A Balagopal were among its founding members. The “Shastragathi” magazine of the Parishad was increasingly becoming popular In Kerala as the first science magazine in Kerala. The Parishad was about to organise an All Kerala Science Quiz. Our teachers could get the Parishad for us to institute an Ever Rolling Trophy in memory of Jacob D Madapattu for the winners.

I was made Convenor of the Project. Instead of the conventional trophy, it was decided to have a beautiful wooden sculpture as the trophy. National award winning Artist Viswam of the SMSM Institute Thiruvananthapuram was commissioned to make the sculpture. K R Rajan IAS, a former teacher of our college, was the one person who helped me most in the successful completion of the venture.

The Science Exhibition conducted in our College was the first of its kind a in North Kerala in our first year was a resounding success. Scientific exhibits were prepared and put up by the senior batches and we were co-opted as volunteers. Long serpentine ques were seen every day with students from the Colleges and Schools in the district poured in. The musical fountain and the sun dial remained as permanent exhibits till the time we left college.

Even the exhibition is tinged with sadness in my memory. On the day before the exhibition was to be opened, we were hectically preparing the exhibits till late into the night. The College Chairman P J Joseph invited us to have tea at Kattangal . On our way, just outside the gate of E Hostel, Joseph was bitten by a snake. We rushed him to our campus hospital, but eh doctor could not do much other than to apply a tourniquet. The condition of the patient was deteriorating and the old doctor accompanied us to the Medical College, fearing for his life. Things went bad to worse when it was discovered that anti venom was not in stock. The medicine had to be brought from the District Hospital, which took a few more hours. However luck held and PJ Joseph survived. Sadly, the College Chairman had to miss the event he had been waiting for, for months, the Inaugural function of the Science Exhibition.

If we had thought that we have had enough of the sorrows and sadness for the rest of our period in the College, we were mistaken. Destiny had more bitter episodes in store events which would become part of the history and folklore. More of it later.