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Chemistry Lab Chemistry Lab. Once a week, after lunch, we would have three periods of lab – Chemistry Practicals’ we called it. This would take us all the way from lunch to the tea break. It was usually a frustrating time for me. My experiments were always inconclusive and I was told that if I had done them correctly I would have got the expected results. I think I just didn’t follow the directions exactly to the letter. To add to that, my best friend, Chokchai Niamkongkit, was one of the best students in the class. We always worked side by side. He would finish his work successfully, all the while chatting and comparing notes with the other top student in the class, Rajni Palriwala. Invariably, I felt inadequate. It wasn’t till our final, ISC, practical exam that I got some satisfaction from chemistry practicals. On a typical lab afternoon, sometime in the middle of the school year when I was a senior, we had toiled and fussed with test-tubes and salts, and titration and lime water and hydrochloric acid and Bunsen burners and filter paper till we had had about as much as we could take. The Chemistry teacher, Mr. Mathai, [more popularly known as ‘Bulldog’], received an urgent call to take care of something in his office. This happened from time to time since he was the Vice-Principal of the school. Pradip Verma, Surender Pal Singh Lamba and I were still finishing up our experiments. I think we were cleaning up and putting things back. Mr. Mathai was in the supplies room when he got the call and had to leave. In a moment of misplaced trust, he left the three of us to finish up and then lock the lab and return the key to him. First of all, we went into the supply room. There we raided the mercury container. We each helped ourselves to a nice little portion of the liquid metal and were about to lock up and leave when our eyes fell on the Potassium and Sodium bottles on the shelf – at eye level. Who could resist? We just stood there looking at the bottles with the echoes of many a sleepy chemistry lesson ringing in our ears – informing us of what happens when sodium and potassium are exposed to water. We had seen the effects under controlled circumstances. That should have been enough for us. But the control had not been ours. What would it be like to conduct our own little experiment with our own controls and scenarios? We looked at each other and then thought about putting a little stick of Sodium in a beaker of water. That was vetoed, though as being in the realm of too close to home since all the reaction would happen right there in the lab where we were. I don’t remember which of the two bottles it was we raided in the end. We took out three or four sticks of either Sodium or Potassium and wrapped them in three layers of filter paper. We then tied the bundle up and went to the lab window where we had earlier noticed that the trailer to the school Jeep was lying unhitched right under one of the windows of the lab which overlooked the school garage. Before we did anything, we checked that everything was in order in the lab and that the key was ready to lock up and so on. At the signal, I threw the little bundle into the trailer. For an instant it seemed that it would not roll down to the back of the tilted trailer where rain water had gathered. Then, agonizingly slowly, it started rolling towards the water. We were spellbound. It hit the water and at first nothing happened. Then white smoke started billowing up from the reaction. With the formula “2Na + 2H2O = 2NaOH + 2H2” seared in our brains forever, we fled, the adrenaline pumping through our veins. Downstairs, the class 7 room, outside which was the school garage, was in chaos. Over the noise, we heard the frantic voice of Mr. P.C. Matthews as he yelled, “Get under the desks . . . keep your heads down . . . get out of the class . . . shut the windows . . .”. We didn’t look back! We slowed down only when we were in sight of Mr. Mathai’s office. We didn’t want to appear to be in a hurry or anything. We handed him the keys and confirmed that everything was in order in the lab. We didn’t mention anything about what was going on outside or inside the class 7 room. After tea we passed Mr. Mathai in the corridor of the main building on our way down to Fern Hill. He only said, “What were you boys up to in the lab - huh?”, with that perpetual twinkle in his eyes. We didn’t get into trouble or anything. But that does remind me of one time we did get into trouble with Mr. Mathai. It was the day one of our school vacations started. Classes had given out at 10:20am so that parents could take their children home and still have enough daylight to get them home to Siliguri and Kalimpong and Gangtok or wherever. Tashi Dorjee, Nitin Amlani, Pradip Verma, Surendra Lamba and I suddenly got this bright idea that we would bunk up the hill to North Point for some ‘Bun-Anda’ or ‘Thukpa’ or whatever – it really didn’t matter, as long as we ate something. We went up past the Infirmary and across the Top Flat [the junior playing field that was, to the best of my knowledge, the highest point of the school property] and then up the road. All along the road were cars and Jeeps leaving with children from school or taking parents down to get their children. I wonder if we looked conspicuous walking up the hill without our school uniforms. The school uniform is an indication that you are leaving school with permission. We got back to school after our little feed and there we were told that Mr. Mathai wanted to see us. That didn’t sound good. It didn’t sound good at all. We dragged ourselves down the corridor to his office and knocked on the door. He was already angry when we walked in. Things looked bleaker for us by the minute and when he said, “where have you boys been?”, there was that sinking feeling in our guts as it dawned on us that we had been busted. However, we lied to him and said that we had been around the school – and this made him a little more angry. His ruler came out and he told us to line up so he could whack us on the hands for bunking. Well . . . those weren’t his exact words . . . So – he went to Verma and said ‘Put out your hand”. When the hand was extended – palm upwards – the ruler came down on it with an ominous sound. I became very agitated at the fury of that first crack. “Now the other one”, he told Verma, and brought the ruler down on that one too. It was agony for me because I was last in the line. Behind my back I was rubbing my hands to warm them up for the impending chastisement. Dorjee was next, and then Nitin. Everything would have gone much as expected. In the annals of boarding-school life in India and, I am sure, all over the world there have been many such line-ups. Many a young palm has received many a wooden ruler. Many a group has left many an office duly chastised and enlightened. But none of them had Surendra Pal Singh Lamba in them. Lamba, wasn’t convinced that he had to receive this punishment and so he wanted to reason with Mr. Mathai and talk him out of the course of action that he had already plunged irrevocably and headlong down. Unfortunately, his ‘reasoning’ had an argumentative undertone and a plaintiff strain to it. Not the best tone to use on an already agitated Vice Principal. Put out your hand!”, roared Mr. Mathai. In fear, trembling and the first hint of indignation, Lamba put out his hand and duly received the first portion of his just desserts. The whack was harder than he had imagined it would be. His indignation reached new heights. The Sardar in him rose to the surface and tinged the indignation with a hint of rebellion. Put out the other one!”, Mr. Mathai thundered. With that rebellion under a fragile and tenuous control, Lamba extended the other hand. I felt the wind of the whack as it landed on his left hand – the one closest to me. I was getting ready to put out my right hand when Mr. Mathai, now in full stride, growled to Lamba, “Put out the other one!”. Lamba was dumbfounded! Everyone else had only got two whacks! That’s not fair! They only got two!!!”, he wailed . Well – ok – he didn’t really ‘wail’ . . . Put it out!!”, came the bellowing voice of a very angry Mr. Mathai. Still grumbling and arguing, Lamba put out his right hand again and got another whack for good measure. Get out of here – all of you!”, said Mr. Mathai. I couldn’t believe it! He had forgotten me! Lamba couldn’t believe it either. “You didn’t hit him”, he protested again, pointing at me. I remember thinking that wasn’t very sporting of him. Well, that was the last straw for Mr. Mathai who propelled him towards the door to the office with his right hand and landed a couple more Lamba’s shoulder on the way out, saying all the while, “Get out! Get out!” I was the only one who left that office with a smile. None of the other boys found anything to rejoice about when I kept saying that I didn’t get hit at all. Lamba was particularly sore and showed very poor spirit when I thanked him for getting me off the hook!!! My last Chemistry memory of Mr. Mathai is a good one. The ISC Chemistry Practical exam had just given over. All the students were outside the chemistry lab talking animatedly to Mr. Mathai when I straggled out, much the worse for wear. I felt like I had been drawn and quartered. I really didn’t want to hang around and talk about the Practical exam since I didn’t feel I had fared any better than usual in it. Nonetheless, since all the people I wanted to hang out with were in the circle, I lurked on the fringes. I half listened as Mr. Mathai asked first one, then another of the students what their salt analysis had been. By the end of class 11 we were doing compound salt analysis, so there were two salts to analyze. My heart sank as one by one all the bright students named exotic salts that they had analyzed the compound as consisting of. It seemed like we all had one of the salts in common, but the second one varied from student to student. By the time every other student had answered Mr. Mathai, I was ready to curl up and take a nap just to forget the whole experience. Then Mr. Mathai looked at me with that look he so often had – the one that was on the verge of a smile as though he was already smiling on the inside but his face hadn’t caught up yet. Don’t ask me”, I remember thinking to myself, “Please don’t ask me!”. And what about you Robin?”, he asked me, looking straight into my eyes. I told him that I had got the first one just like everyone else and then hummed and hawed. By this time everyone was looking at me. It was the worst possible scenario. I should have just walked away after I came out of the lab. And what about the second salt?”, he persisted. Now, no one was talking. All eyes were on me. I could have whispered and everyone would have heard. There was no way out. Sodium Chloride”, I muttered – hoping that a bell would ring or something and no one would hear and we could all go off for tea or something. There was an instant round of dismissive muttering. “Sodium Chloride . . . that’s class nine stuff . . . my lime water didn’t turn milky . . .” that kind of tone, if not those very words. By now Mr. Mathai was downright smiling, still looking straight at me though I was having a hard time looking up myself. And then he said to me, “You are the only one who got them both right. Well done!” I think that was one my proudest moments at MH. By : Robin Sengupta Graduated : ISC '71 / HSC '73. Date : 26/7/2002 8:14 |
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