My laboratory days with Ravi Sir

I studied my B Sc  degree in Physics at NSS college, Cherthala during 1970-73 after completing my pre-degree course from St.Michael's college, Cherthala. In St.Michael's Cherthala, every thing was fine at that time. The class rooms were well furnished and spacious, the laboratories were well equipped. The Physics practical lab was well furnished with large white painted tables and even a ball pin fallen anywhere could be easily visible. The windows of the lab were fitted with two shutters, one of glass and other of wood. The closing and opening the labs were a tedious job for laboratory attenders but they did the job meticulously. And that was according to the strict instruction given by the management. 

When comes to chemistry lab, the things were more sophisticated. Each table was furnished with bottles containing  all sorts of colourful chemicals. There were more than sufficient number of burettes and pipettes. All chemical tests to identify acid and basic radicals were done by we students and there was no restriction to the use of chemicals. We had done number of  experiments , a few of them were not even needed for pre-degree level. The teachers asked us to perform more experiments under the assumption we would once become good achievers. The management showed no laxity in procuring equipment and chemicals.

All these things had  totally changed when I joined NSS college, Cherthala for my degree course. The college is situated in a barren area 8 km north of Cherthala town. The surroundings of the college was full of    cashew trees grown on white sugar like sand.  At that time this white sand was kept uncared but now it is a costly commodity.

The NSS college was managed by Nair Service Society. As the management had many colleges in Kerala, this college received no special attention. The walls of the college remained with no white wash, windows kept opened and benches and desks full of pigeon filth. It was routine job for we students to remove pigeon filth from benches before the start of class.

Professor Ravi, Kannezhathu was our Chemistry teacher for subsidiary for two years. Though I was Physics main student I had to study Chemistry and Maths as subsidiary subjects. Now these subjects are renamed as complementary subjects but I never understood the advantage of such a name change. Mathematics is purely theoretical and hence no laboratory work is assigned to it. On the other hand laboratory experiments are compulsory for Chemistry.

As I mentioned earlier the chemistry lab was poorly maintained. Colourful reagent bottles were rare unlike what was seen n St Michael' s college. Many reagent bottles were seen empty but a few others were filled with colourless solutions.

I do still clearly remember a reaction performed in the lab under the supervision of Ravi sir. He asked me to perform the experiment. It was done by adding sodium bitartrate along with soda lime in a test tube and with continuous scratching. Scratching is a technique done by grinding a glass rod against the walls of the test tube containing chemicals. I was well versed in this experiment as I had performed it in the pre-degree class. There I was successful in the first trial itself but in NSS college lab, even though I scratched several minutes no white precipitate was obtained. I reported the matter to Ravi sir. And with all seriousness he asked me to repeat the experiment but I never succeeded.

After one year, I passed my BSc  degree meritoriously. I went to meet Ravi sir  in his department.  He was seen very happy and congratulated me for I was the topper in subsidiary chemistry too. I cherished my experience of scratching experiment in the chemistry lab. He laughed and said:

" There were no chemical by name sodium bitartarate in our lab. What you used was tap water collected and kept in the bottle. Students will scratch several times and finally they stop when their hands ache. You said truth of the negative result but many claimed they had received white precipitate with water treatment!. All right. Wish you the best".

Ravi Sir is no more.  He died a few days back because of heart failure.

K A Solaman