ब्लैक - बैंचर

Loved it, hated it, cursed it, blessed it.. A mixed bag of emotions! Its only when you reach the end do you realise how wonderful the journey was... The night of 29th July 2009... That's when my journey began. The night was ripe and, for the first time, I entered AH5-310... BITS Pilani Goa Campus, that's the way I remember it, a deadly combo of discipline, fun, frolic, rules and academics! Morning dawns and thats when I get a view of the majestic B-dome.. And began the ritual of classes, clubs, inductions, projections and rejections. Looking back, I have had it all..

So we are working on our project, filing our hearts out, buying piece after piece of scrap and then, BAM!! The workshop people tell us there aint any way we are gonna be allowed to use the most important machine... The one, the only, the VMC.. Apparently, she's damn expensive, incredibly user-friendly and totally out of reach for those who really wish to make some good use out of it. Its kept there as a mere show-piece, to attract a rep that our college has the best of labs and tons of research scope. Although it would be better if they replaced the shaper. In the words of one of the instructors, "it may fall over if its used". And to add fuel to the fire, for every screw-driver or pliers that we borrow, we have to convince them that we arent gonna sell them outside after we are done. Measuring tapes and nut-bolts are still alien to this workshop! They just forget one little thing... Research aint gonna be seduced by sexy machines or big names. It has to come from us, t