Management: Hindu Education Society of Lucknow was a non-government organization registered under the Societies Registration Act. The society had twelve to fourteen local members. The society had established Civil Engineering School Lucknow, sometimes in 1934 as a private institution for the conduct of overseers certificate courses in civil engineering. Initially, the school was recognized by the state government of U.P. and subsequently in the fifties, it was affiliated to the adhoc board of technical education of U.P. The institution was not getting any public donations or government grants in 1951. The institution depended on the fees collected from the students for meeting all expenses. The society had designated one of its members as manager for overseeing the activities of the institution and for financial control. Principal of the institution was responsible for day to day administration and academic activities of the institution. However, he was expected to take all administrative and financial matters to the manager for his clearance. The principal had reasonable freedom in the conduct of academic, social, cultural and sports activities of the students. Members and office bearers of Hindu Education Society participated freely and enthusiastically in all social and cultural functions of the institution.
Early experiences: For us there was a major shift from the job of an irrigation officer, riding on horseback on canal banks, following the tinkling sounds of water, with all the twists and turns, from head regulators to the tail ends of channels. There was tremendous excitement in looking at waters gushing out from the outlets and thereafter, following the life giving waters from one plot to another. Communicating with the farmers and rural folk with all the barriers and bottlenecks of language, dialect and rustic inquisitiveness, was always very exciting and served as a unique learning experience. Teaching with chalk and duster in a private engineering school with an assortment of students was a very different story. Medium of instruction was english, but the level of attainment and understanding of students varied widely. Teaching in an engineering school is all about materials and methods of construction. That involves visualization about things, processes and equipment, which the students had never seen. To top it all, there is a plethora of technical terms with which the students are not familiar. Some of the all time greats, whose thoughts and scientific research have changed the course of the world, had found it extremely difficult to communicate at the level of school children. In teaching, it is important that whatever little you know, you should know thoroughly and then you should have the inclination, professional skill and patience to go down to the level of the students and to deliver it to them in their language, at their level.
Teaching and reading material: During the pre-independence period, the number of technical institutions in the country was extremely limited. Books available in the market were mostly from British authors, printed and published in Britain. Naturally, the books referred to construction materials, methods and practices commonly suitable for works in Britain. Most of the books were written for the use of students of engineering colleges and for reference by working professionals in the field. Books written by Indian authors were extremely limited. In the good old days, Thomason College of Civil Engineering Roorkee had developed and published a series of Roorkee manuals for the use of their students and for the general benefit of serving officers in the field. Since, these manuals were not revised and published periodically, they were not readily available. During that period, most of the teachers relied on spoken word through lectures in the class and dictation of notes on significant topics based on their personal experience and whatever reading material became available to them.
From the very beginning, I was in the habit of writing out my lectures in detail. At that time, the institution had a copier, which utilized sensitized mastersheets with carbon for typing. Subsequently, the carbon impressions on the backside of the mastersheets were utilized for taking out prints on plain paper. The machine was very sparsely used in the office, except for some odd jobs, once in a while. The limitation of the process was that the prints were faint and only ten to fifteen legible prints could be taken from the one mastersheet. Anyway, I got a box of mastersheets and started printing my lectures. That helped me in utilizing most of the time in the class for introduction and exposition of significant sections of the lectures, followed by interactive sessions with the students and for responding to their querries. The printed copies were distributed to the students in groups of four to five students. The students were happy about it and they managed to make their copies after the class according to their convenience. So far as I was concerned, that was an end to the dictation of notes in the class and the students scribbling them on their notebooks.
Notes on Roads: That was the time, when Gestetner had started assembling their duplicating machines in India. The machines used stencils and printing ink. Duplicated prints of Gestetner were very neat and were as good as that of printed books. Since the flow of ink was through the stencils, all duplicated copies were equally sharp. After some wrangling, we were able to get a machine installed in the institution. ‘Roads’ was one of the subjects that I was teaching at that time. Highways were in a primitive state of development in India at that time. Suitable books on roads or development of highways suitable for Indian conditions were not available. A conference of chief engineers of British provinces at Nagpur in 1943 had suggested a twenty year plan, commonly known as Nagpur plan, for the development of roads in India. Indian Roads Congress was in the process of finalizing the standards and specifications for planning and development of different categories of of roads, viz., national highways, state highways, district roads and village roads in the country. I had a feeling that it was an opportunity to write field oriented notes on roads for bringing the latest professional information about roads to the students. I requested the management of the institution to provide me stencils and duplicating paper and I undertook to cut the stencils and to print sufficient number of copies on Gestetner duplicating machine for distribution to the students. The estimated cost of stencils, duplicating paper and ink for printing 100 copies of notes with 50 sheets of paper per copy, worked out to about Rs 87.50. The management agreed to the proposal with the proviso that upto Rs 87.50 be spent for covering the cost of stencils, paper and ink and that Rs 100 may be collected from the students at Re 1 per copy. The notes were written, printed, neatly bound and issued to the students. That was not all. The demand for notes persisted. That was the time, when Public Works Department of UP was conducting departmental examinations for the promotion of overseers serving in the department to the post of assistant engineers. Incidentally, the serving overseers found that the notes covered all those things that they needed for their examinations.
Notes on irrigation: Irrigation was another subject that I was teaching. By that time, Gestetner had supplied a more improved machine to the institution. They were also marketing blue, black, red and green inks for printing in more than one colour. They had introduced blue stencils for freehand sketching, drawings and charts. They had also developed photographic methods for preparation of stencils for photos, charts and drawings. All that was very tempting and the project ‘irrigation notes’ had a head start. It helped me in supplementing the notes with sketches and drawings of different works and informative tables and charts. It may look very funny and amusing to people of the present generation, who have all the information they need on their finger tips from the internet, through their cellphones or computers and if they need one or more hard copies, they get them in a jiffy through printers and photocopiers. There was no internet at that time and our notes were based on common field practices, supplemented by limited published books and papers available at that time. Our notes on irrigation ultimately ran into 100 sheets of paper and 100 copies of the notes were printed and bound. They were priced by the management at Rs 2 per copy. Apart from the final year students of our institution, the notes on irrigation were very much in demand by serving overseers of irrigation department, who found them very useful for preparations for departmental examinations for promotion of overseers to the rank of assistant engineers.