The Maratha Regiment

This story dates back to good ol' tough days. The days when "studies", "goals and ambitions", "future" etc. was in air (or atleast was supposed to be). The days of HSC (the twelfth standard).

No subject is more interesting than Physics. And no teacher was more interesting than the Physics professor, Mr. Deshpande. My junior college being a convent institution, the marathi speaking lot was a scarcity. (although the situation had drastically improved since the centralized admission process was established). Thus, a marathi speaking guy was a priceless gem for Deshpande sir and hence was eligible for the soft corner and above priviedged treatment. One that comes handy in a year as important as HSC. My first encounter of him was kinda shaky, though. He was elated to know I was a maharashtrian and spoke marathi. He very enthusiastically asked me about my hobbies and I, inadvertently, said reading (which was suppose to be the most common hobby of most ppl). He asked which books do you read, expecting me to list down names of some famous titles and authors pertaining to marathi literature, one that I hardly had a smell of. Not even PuLa occured to my mind then and I somehow managed to get rid the situation by giving some roundabout answer.

So then, the experiments we performed in Physics lab were very interesting, and from exam point of view, easily crackable. Except for one - to find frequency of a tuning fork using sonometer, with paper riders kept on a metal wire. The probability of finding the exact length of wire where the rider would fall off (due to resonance and not wind) was far less than finding a needle in a haystack. However, with combined effort of entire batch, a few lucky ones did hit the jackpot with all their stars falling at right place on right time. All we had to do is to store the results and preserve them like a precious jewel.

In the practice experiments, the dress rehersal for the final showdown, we mastered only one act. Sleek execution of the experiment with the results already stored at the back of the mind. And at the end of the day, we were prepared to take the finals head-on.

On the day of the exam, we had to pick a cheat for the experiments to be performed. It was a very cruel setup. Made you feel like your whole career was a mere gamble. After all the exitement, and the apprehensive pondering of faces selecting the cheats, my turn came and I knew my stars weren't shining brighter that day when I found - Part 1: To find frequency of tuning fork...

We were trained for this situation, yet my heart skipped a beat. But I had to do well... just like a cold blooded sniper, who finds a corner window of a remote building, unpacks his gadgets, puts the parts together to assemble his 1000 yard precision rifle, aims at his victim, pulls the trigger and bang... the victim is lying dead!

I got to my desk, setup the sonometer, aimed the rider at right length, lifted the tuning fork and bang... not a stir in the air!!! The rider sat cruelly stuck to the wire... Bang, bang, bang... no effect on the rider.

Apparantly, the metal wire that was used for our practice experiments was changed. The metal density, that had always been a constant in all the calculations ever done, had varied that day. And not even the wildest imagination of mine would have predicted that (forget the sensible analysis).

Next one hour i was busy adjusting the length and banging the fork. Sometimes i felt like banging my head and giving the poor fork some relief. But the results were not to come... in desparation, i manipulated the calculations with whatever that came to my mind. Did not show anything to the external invigilator. Went to proceed with my next expreiment (which fell on right, rather perfect tracks).

That day I felt like all the time I spent on the college ground should have been spent elsewhere.

When I got my result, I found myself wanting for marks in Physics. Only 90/100 meant the first experiment had got a zero. But when I got the breakup, I had got 20 in practicals. The situation could have been worse had I got any lesser in practicals...

The Maratha Regiment had struck!!!