Second Chance.....

Have you ever got a second chance or given a second chance. I have been a recipient of lot of second chances..from friends, family, teachers etc.
One of the most important ones was in 1996 October ,and I was in my 4th year engineering and my engineering project failed for some important reason. (a very bad idea and project sponsor was also very dumb).
In case if you have not studied engineering in Pune University you might not know that all Mechanical engineering students are supposed to build a project (product which can be a tool, software etc of value and which can generate value) for their final exam. Then examiners (professors) from a different university will critique the project and reward marks to each project. The marks constituted about 17% of the total and was very important because in my University if any one gets marks below 60%(or first class) his degree was not even worth the paper it was printed on (@200 Rs).

So here I was, the most important exam of my life and I learnt that my project will fail. And to add to the misery, my project guide was going to be our Mechanics professor. This gentleman was one of the best professors and he had a very good grasp and conveyed the thoughts very clearly. So you might ask what is the problem.

Well the problem was me. In one of his lectures, my friend Archan was not present (he was as usual lounging with his good for nothing friends). Now Archan was lagging behind in attendance and asked me to mark him present for all lectures possible ie proxy attendance. This practise was very much frowned upon by all professors and unfortunately I was caught in the act by this very professor. As a punishment, he had failed me in viva for that semester.

So here we are...Project is failing and I might even fail my final exam and I have an unsympathetic guide. The only thing left was for the sky to fall.

Suddenly an idea stuck me. My best dude, Vikya had a good project going on and they had a slot open for a partner. And Satya (one more TP character) had one slot open for Alex my partner. (more on their project later). So voila..I had a new project and new partners. The only thing lacking was permission from my guide to change projects.

So with an heavy heart, myself and Alex drove to our professors house. After searching a lot, we found his house. But what , the professor was on vacation in Karnataka and only his old father was at home. Some how we got the Karnataka phone number from his dad. So again with heavy heart, Alex and myself phoned the Professor.

He was irritated that we were disturbing his vacation but he let us speak. We told him about our predicament and told him of our suggestion on joining other projects. He didn't say anything for a minute but it felt like a generation and finally he said "Guys, its fine. If your project has failed, you can join other project provided they agree to take you." Easily the best words of 1996.

Well Professor Mugad, thanks a lot sir for giving us a Second Chance...I hope you prosper and people of your tribe prosper too...