The engineering admission was a real nightmare, as mentioned earlier that the MBBS admissions procedure was changed and now it would be purely based on the marks scored at the entrance tests, the people who had hoped to get into MBBS had second thoughts about their ambitions materializing. So they hogged up engineering seats to serve as a rebound in case they don’t make it into MBBS. Now this was plain unacceptable to many a engineering aspirants, since the closing percentages of most colleges went up by 10 % compared to previous years, which translated into the fact that amongst the students who were pitching in for a college of their choice, most would have to be satisfied with the next best one available.
The engineering admission process was centralized, which ensured that a student did not hog up seats at more than one college. The process was conducted at VJTI a supposedly premier (read old) engineering college in the suburbs of Wadala. The process was divided into rounds to facilitate proceedings. Every aspirant was required to list down 7 colleges of his choice in order of preference and submit the form which would be scanned and returned back, The first round would try to allot the student to the preferred college if vacancies persists, if not then its round 2.
My choices were just 3 colleges, Father Agnel Vashi, Bharati Vidyapeeth Belapur and Ramrao Adik Nerul , the branch of interest Instrumentation, and the type of seat “Free” (There are 2 types of seats in all engineering colleges under Mumbai University, the Free seat which used to cost around 4000 Rs. a year during my time and the paid seat that would set you back by a whopping 32000 Rs. a year, 32K was whopping then as it was one third of my dads annual take home). I was shown the boot in the first round.
My cousin brother, a D**k that he was, was very much inclined to pursue computer engineering from vivekanand college, and he also harbored the belief that getting into the college is all that mattered, as for the stream, changing it would be a breeze once you get to the second year. It was this belief that provoked him to put vivekanand in all of his seven choices, with all the seven different branches of engineering that it had to offer, Computer ranked first and electrical seventh. He got into vivekanand in the first round, got a free seat too, but electrical. He celebrated none the less.
I went to the second round hoping to get admitted to a good college and as per my preference criteria, the real time statistics were projected on a huge OHP screen, and the only college that met my criteria when I reached the payment counter was “Konkan Dyanpeeth CoE Karjat”. I took it without a second thought, a free seat was all that I wanted and I was not willing to let go the one I got.
My dad was furious when he came to know that I would be spending a major portion of my next four years commuting. He wished that I had opted for a Paid seat in a college that could at least be commuted without hassle. But I was happy, for I managed to get into engineering.
The centralized admissions were far from being over, VJTI announced a new round 5C where we could check if a better college was available as many colleges had revisions on its intake capacity. I rushed to VJTI. The OHP displays were refreshing with gusto as many students traded their seats for different, better colleges as per their perspectives. And when it was my turn the options that suited my tastes were:
- Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology arnd 10 km from Thane and
I chose the closest one, Never was decision making more easier. My dad was relieved to know that my commute had shortened drastically and that his son would finally become an engineer some day. My mom had a different reason and the reason was my happiness.
I continued my job with Students academy till it was time to start on my engineering studies, and was bade a warm farewell by the proprietors.
As for the MBBS entrance exam, for which even I had applied for, never materialized that year due to poor planning and execution by the government officials, the Students did get admitted to MBBS based on their HSC scores (I never even came close, had an offer for dental, but I did not wish to have a hand to mouth existence, so rejected it), the second month saw vacant classrooms and a dip in income in most of the large colleges. There was an Eighth round announced by VJTI but I was too tired running around for admissions that I opted out.
As for my babe, she continued at Kelkar, for some reason she shifted her Major to Literature. And the last I heard from her, she was looking up Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
My engineering Years held a lot of surprises for me…
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