Ramblings from a Microbiology Lab

Login: gpo.iitb.ac.in
Inbox (1): From: Dr. K.K. Rao
To: MS: Biotechnology, Sem 3
Subject: “I really don’t remember man…”
Time: “Ditto”

All,
This is to convey that from now onwards, eatables are STRICTLY not allowed in the department. Anybody seen consuming food inside laboratories (including the UG lab) will be severely dealt with.

Best regards,
Dr. K.K. Rao
Head of Department (HOD)

Oh that mail you are asking? Yeah..This is what my college mail inbox read roughly 24 hours post the infamous KAJU (Hindi for Cashew nut) KAND (Hindi for Blunder)!

Moving back….like 24-28 hrs behind:

Its the Microbiology lab you are looking at (Via the text…Come on now..fuel your imagination fella…)..Steaming autoclaves…smell of 70% ethanol, culture media (yuck though)…UV hoods turned on…me randomly hovering around my classmates...fighting for pipettes…trying to figure stuff out!

So it was a regular day in the lab basically.

Course: Microbiology Lab
Credits: 10
Instructor: Prof.P.P.
Time: Post lunch

A friend got this Kaju box from home. But obviously lab decorum kind of prohibited us to have it while plating microbes on their nutrient beds! But where there is a will there is a way my friend…and a hungry mind is a genius planner!
So we went inside this store-room…10X10 (Approximation..) or even smaller room with a PC, cupboards et al., with the 10 (Approximation again…) of us inside. While the sensible majority was busy gorging on all the kajus that they could, silly me was busy locating my house on google earth!

A little background here would go on to explain a lot. Since the time I left Delhi (Capital of India), I was incredibly home sick! In fact, anything remotely related to my amazing city had the potential to light up my otherwise ordinary looking face!
So obviously, a real time view of Delhi was a treat to say the least! We were all so absorbed in the revelry that ensued, that the fact that we are in a lab and stuff just blew off our minds.
While I was busy locating the playground where my brother plays football (and making others see it too…whether or not they were femto-interested in it was not my concern!), others were probably busy enjoying the yummy kajus my friend got.
Enter Prof. P.P. (who was christened with the name of “Batman” eventually...for those of you who love the superhero, forgive my classmates…they were kind people)
Mood: Gloomy (my guess…otherwise he wouldn’t have created a battleship out of a poor kaju!)
So probably noticing thin air and no students, he followed his student-preying instincts to discover our hideout!
There he stood, at the doorway, our only escape from the wrath of our dear professor! The windows were sealed and so were our chances of getting away!
For what I figure, his temper was so bad that he couldn’t utter a single word…what followed eventually is hazy...but I remember him throwing off some of my friends out of the lab and generally creating a scene!
Our grades were an honest reflection of his grudges!

This laid the foundation for eventual bitching sessions, general class bonding, discussions revolving around Batman (minus Robin..bad joke I know…but its high time you got used to it!), threat mails from the HOD (the content aforementioned).

We even devised a plan to teach the poor fellow a lesson…now that its all a thing of the past, I might as well spill the beans! It was mutually decided to gift Batman (oh did I tell you that he was also referred to as Prof. Snape) with a box of sweets on the day we leave the insti (yeah like rob and flee). And not just gift it the conventional way, but by feeding it to the hydrocarbon degrading microbes of his lab (simply put- spoiling the culture media). We left it at that though…that plan was never executed..(Excuse me…we didn’t chicken out or anything…but like I said, my classmates were kind people!)

It was definitely one of “those” incidents that you would laugh at “10 years down the line”. I could not wait for that long though..started giggling (and hysterically at that!) immediately after we left the lab! And not just me…people who were detained exhibited similar behavior!
Right…those were indeed the days!

MJ Signing off!