Lucknow: Lucknow is the capital city of Uttar Pradesh and is one of the fastest growing cities of India. Lucknow had a chequered history. Sometimes in 1350, Lucknow and part of Awadh were controlled by sultans of Delhi. Thereafter for some time, these were in the hands of nawabs of Jaunpur. Humayun annexed it to Moghul Empire in 1555. With the disintegration of the moghul empire, the nawabs of Awadh became powerful in Awadh. Nawab Asaf-ud-daula made Lucknow the capital of Awadh in 1775. Subsequently, East India Company got control of Lucknow in 1801. Lucknow played a prominent role during the freedom struggle of 1857. Awadh alongwith Lucknow became a part of the British empire after the collapse of the freedom struggle in 1857.
In the year 1951, Lucknow was a neat little city on the banks of river Gomati. It was well known for its historic buildings constructed by the nawabs of Awadh. Prominent among them were Bada Imambara, Shah Najaf, Rumi Darwaza and Chatter Manzil. Hazaratgunj and Aminabad were main marketing centres of the town. During the reign of nawabs of Awadh, Lucknow had developed into a multi-cultural city. Nawabs were fond of poetry and music and helped considerably in the development of religious tolerance, popularly known as ganga jamuni culture. Although Lucknow was the capital city of U.P. in 1951, it was much smaller and less developed then some of the fast developing and prominent cities of the state like Kanpur, Allahabad, Banaras and Agra.
Technical Education and training: During the thirties, the number of engineering institutions in the country was extremely limited. When the second world war broke out in 1939, the country was faced with tremendous shortage of all types and all levels of technical, professional and skilled manpower. It was a common scene to see long convoys of trucks, busses and cars moving on the streets of almost all cities for the training of drivers. Crash programmes were initiated for skill development and training of technicians to meet the pressing needs of the defence services. At that time, the whole of U.P. had only one civil engineering college at Roorkee with an intake of 30 for the civil engineering course and an intake of 40 for the overseer’s certificate course. Incidentally, Banaras Hindu University was the only university in U.P. which was running a combined degree course in electrical and mechanical engineering. However, the industries department of U.P. was running some technical institutes for the training of electrical and mechanical supervisors and Lucknow had two private schools, which were running two year overseer’s certificate courses in civil engineering.
Civil Engineering School Lucknow: During the year 1951, Civil Engineering School Lucknow was a private institution running an overseer’s certificate course in civil engineering. It was functioning from a rented building near Charbagh Railway station. The built up accommodation available to the institution was extremely limitied. The laboratories and workshops were not properly equipped and they were functioning in an improvised manner. The principal of the institution was a retired executive engineer of U.P. P.W.D. Hewett Engineering School was another private institution running overseer’s certificate course in civil engineering in the Chowk area of Lucknow. However, from considerations of control and maintenance of certain minimum standards, the state government had constituted an ad-hoc board of technical education with the vice-chancellor of the University of Roorkee as chairman and the registrar of the university as controller of examinations. Consequently, the syllabus followed by the University of Roorkee for the overseer’s certificate course at Roorkee was prescribed for the two private schools of Lucknow and common examinations were introduced for the overseer’s certificate course of the University of Roorkee and overseer’s certificate courses of Civil Engineering School Lucknow and Hewett Engineering Sschool Lucknow. That was the time, when I joined Civil Engineering School Lucknow as Lecturer in Civil Engineering in July 1951.
Settling down at Lucknow: Before independence, for almost hundred years, Thomason College of Civil Engineering Roorkee was a leading and prestigious institution of the country. It was more of an officer’s training school for the production of field oriented officers needed for the construction and maintenance of Ganga Canal. However, as time rolled on, the institution was able to develop traditions for hardwork, rigour, leadership, fellowship and fraternal relationships. The alumni were always face to face with an amalgam of cut-throat rivalry and a free flow of fellowship and fraternal feelings for each other. When the news of my resignation from irrigation department of U. P. and my joining a private engineering school, running overseers certificate courses went round, it looked like hara-kiri to all those, who were proud to have crossed the portals of Thomason College. Everybody seemed to be concerned about me and started frantic efforts to lift me up, from the morass. In the meantime, Civil Engineering School Lucknow offered me the wardenship of a hostel running in an old and dilapidated building, about a kilometer away from the institution. It was a three storey building, with a modest accommodation for the warden on the top floor. It was a far cry from the chain of inspection houses and all that we were used to, during our tenure in the irrigation department of U.P., but it seems, that, we felt happy to have some living accommodation in the town.
Our family in July 1951: Ours was a small compact family, when we moved to Lucknow. Husband, wife and two small kids. Our father was living with us and moved with us to Lucknow. My younger brother Jai Narain was already at Lucknow pursuing a medical course in the final year of MBBS at King George’s Medical College, Lucknow. Our younger brother Krishan had competed his two year residential course leading to B.Sc at Pilani in Rajasthan and after joining us at Lucknow, he had enrolled for M.Sc course in Mathematics at the University of Lucknow. Our youngest brother Hari had also returned to Lucknow after going through a two years residential course of Intermediate in Science at Pilani. Our father was happy and relaxed as the whole family happened to be together with him at Lucknow.
Hostel: The hostel building was owned by the descendants of nawabs of the good old days and had a tremendous historic value. However, the owners did not have the means and the inclination to maintain it and to keep it in good shape. They were satisfied with the nominal rent that they were able to get from the institution, without bothering about anything else. The plot of land was spacious and there was substantial built up accommodation and open space. The total number of students living in the hostel at that time was about 50, shared almost equally on the ground floor and first floor. Most of the students came from the outlying districts and in some cases from outside provinces. By and large, they belonged to middle class families with modest economic backgrounds. After settling down as a warden in the hostel, I made it a routine to meet 10 to 15 students everyday in their rooms after dinner and to have a look at their class notes and books. That was an eye-opener and a great learning experience for me. They did not have suitable books and depended mostly on the notes dictated by the teachers in the class. Most of the books available in the market were from British authors, printed and published in Britain. Learning and readable material suitable for their academic level and attainments was simply not available in the market. However, the winds of change had started blowing after independence of India and there appeared to be unlimited opportunities for fruitful employment for people involved in the pursuit of supervisory level technical, professional and skill development programmes. That was a great motivation for the students and in spite of all the academic and intellectual limitations, the students seemed to be keen to learn and make a mark