If you read my
earlier post I was really tried hard
to get away from computer at every stage of my all life and today I am in an IT
engineering stream so after entering in to college, it’s was high time I should
meet Mr. Computer and say him my first “Hi”. So first day of everything is
always a special one in life and one never forgets it. We had our computer lab
set up in a week time after college started. So on coming Monday we had a
computer class scheduled and we all reached to the lab. I was confident since I
had Jitin with me and he was quite good with computers. This was for the first
time I actually sat in front of a computer. As all of us were working to start
their computers, there came the computer lab professor and welcomed us all in Lab.
Professor shared some basics of using computers etc. like shut down properly,
never use Floppy drives without scanning (it was 1.44 MB Floppy drives that we
use to have and today my phone single camera shot is like 3-5 MBs). Most of
people in room have already pressed the power button to start their computers
however since the time professor came in everyone turned around and started
listening to professor. Professor was writing some basic commands on board to execute
and get familiar to computers. I was sitting in front of computer and waiting
for it to start where as others were already seeing their desktops on monitors and
following the teacher. I got up and switch on the UPS (power source) once more and
sat down, waiting for computer to respond… after a while Jitin asked me “is it
up?” I said I am waiting for computer to start. Jitin looked at me and asked
what is going on. I said confidently that I pressed the power button and it
come up soon. He said ok and went back to professor, looking at white board for
commands. We met this professor for first time since it was first computer
class and everybody was very interested listening to the lecture.
You might think that
the professor was teaching us for first time, or every one of us was using
computer for first time (we had many people having computers at home) or it was
first computer class and we were studying hard since it was first short
semester and that why everyone was listening to interestingly. So the attraction
was not the new high end computer or the Lab with good AC but it was really
good looking lady professor who may have just finishing her studies and
teaching us today first time and everyone was looking at her and studying
seriously.. really seriously.
After a while Jitin again glanced back and asked why the computer is still not
up. I said I pressed the button. We were just taking in gestures and not words
so he thought I pressed the power on button so something wrong with computer
itself. So then we waited until the teacher ended her lecture and we turned
back to computer. Jitin asked me to press the power button again and check. I
said which power button. I already switched on the UPS. He asked if I pressed
the power button I said “Yes”. He said did I press the power button on
computer. I innocently said “No”. Jitin and Sonam burst into laughter and then
Jitin got up and pressed the power button of computer and it started booting. I
also burst in to laughter since it was the first time I switch on computer and
that too horribly. This was my first encounter with Computer in life…. I
was a Maths bond and Jits (Jitin’s nick name) was a computer geek so we agreed
that after college we will go to Jits home and then I will help him with Maths
and I will work for some time on his computer... he used to call his computer
"champu"… it was P1 and dam slower that the P4 machines we had in
computer lab but it was the first every computer machine I wrote my completed
working C++ program. We started studying together, working out Maths and
other subjects and compiling c++ program on his machines, which it use to
compile without any problem but hell lot of coding error… and horrors…. and as
we already started late for first session so we had our first and second
session exams in quick succession and finally we had our finals… due to
shortage of time… we had to stretch from morning 7 AM until 8 PM in the evening
and sometime later as well... I can never forget the days when we really
struggled to finish off our all subjects in a short time and real fascinating
was the “Manufacturing Process” Workshop classes where actually sweat out
cutting, filing wood to make boxes. Somehow I always had a good relationship
with mechanics and logical thinking so I will say overall I was in a good
stream to build my career and professional life.
