The quest of a Carpenter!

Gotcha! You were thinking that it is a story about a carpenter right? It is partly correct. It is about me and my quests in the mandatory Carpentry workshop during my first year Engineering, about 6 years ago. All the engineering freshers have an Engineering lab which has four parts: Mechanical, Carpentry, Electronics and Electrical. I had a flair for electronics and hence usually aced the E-E labs. And mechanical is always the handyman jobs like turning, drilling and welding. That was also a piece of cake. But I never understood the complexities involved in the art of carpentry. We just had to make joints as it is a basic lab and yet I managed to screw it up every chance I had. Almost all the carpentry works I was assigned to ended up in bit and pieces and a long you-should-learn-fast-or-you-will-fail-the-final-practicals lecture from my professor. 

But I was very much confident. It was because I knew that I will not do all the 4 categories during finals. I have to choose one lab each in the Electronics/Electrical, Mechanical/Carpentry. And our professor told that they will have more mechanical option than carpentry as most of the ECE students suck in that. You get the picture right, I was thinking that I would easily score a Mech and ace it with a turning, drilling or welding. But what I did not know was how they will split up the class during the practicals. My name starts with 'S' and I usually come at the end of a group; not the starting. And that decided everything.

First lab was E/E. The sheet I picked up had Electrical and I, without, any doubt aced it in under half an hour, finished my viva and was back at the workshop. Now is the toughest the part, Mech/Carp. I stood last in line and when it was my turn to choose, there were only 2 papers on the choosing desk. I picked up one, and it was a T-joint. My professor looked at me gravely and asked me to take the other one (he knew that I would fail if I go to wood workshop). So I took the last paper. I think the satan was standing right next to me. The last paper had Dove-Tail joint. If you dont know what I an talking about, here are the pictures.

T joint

DoveTail joint

As you can see, dove tail joint has more chances of being screwed up than T joint. And I told about Satan right, hold on to that thought. Before my professor could hurriedly hand me back the T joint paper, the External Examiner came in. So, I had no other go than to register that I got DoveTail joint and go to carpentry workshop. In the workshop, I started making, rather tried shaping the wood into a D-T joint. Made the measurements with extra concentration and lost the sense of the activities going on around me. It was at this time that the other students in the workshop snooped around the lab searching for already made joints to take to the External. Me being pretty concentrated with my work, never realized what is happening until I was the only person in the workshop. By that time, I had regally screwed up my D-T and it did not fit snuggly into the joint and had a space in between. And there was no D-T around in the lab. And I just wanted to pass the practical exam. So I collected all the bits and pieces and wood chips lying around; stuffed it into the space between the joint and D-T and hammered it down until it was strong and I was not able to pry it off. Looking at it, it looked perfectly engineered and was very much appealing. And that proved to be a disadvantage.

So, I am all set to go to the External Examiner; show my carp (crap) work and finish my viva. The Satan still hold true. So I am on my way to the external. Now I should tell you about the type of external examiners we get in the Engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu. My friend Prasanna aptly theorized them as:

Kid: Mom, did you see me before I was born?

MOM: No, I did not.

Kid: Then, after I was born, how did you that it is me?

Mom: ???

These kind of kids grow up to become our External Examiner for viva.

The External examiner was very much impressed by my work and praised a lot for being so good at carp and that I had real talent - my model was so good. So, now he wanted to test the strength of my model and started trying to pry it off. I am sitting straight across him praying to God that it should not come off. But Satan was still beside me. So, the joint came off after one mighty tug and all the wood shavings I had stuffed inside fell as one big ugly pile on my External's lap. At that instance I just wanted to tap my shoes and fly off into the sky. But I am no super-man and there I was staring with horror at my External with just one thought, 'please dont 'fail' me'. External just stared at me for 5 fulls minutes (within that time, I had flown to moon and back thrice- News Flash: I was going crazy) and then laid my model at his table and slowly patted off the dirt from his pants. My prayer was continuing - 'Please God, I want to pass. Please please please...'  

Then he started questioning me. I think Satan wandered away from me at that time (I heard a loud squeal from the welding workshop where one of my class mate had cut a metal piece into half instead of welding 2 pieces together - I think Satan went there. Anyway, he left me). So, I answered all the questions he asked correctly and impressed him (Or so I would like to think) and he said my golden words,'Unakku carpentry theriyaatiyum, theory ya ozhunga padichu vaichirukka. Seri po, unna naa fail pannala' (Even though you did not know carpentry, you have learnt your theory well. So, I will not fail you). By that time I had prayed to all the Gods I ever knew of since birth. My professor gave me an exasperated somehow-you-have-passed look and I rushed of to the safer realms of my class bench.

And that was the end of my Carpentry work - not dream. My dream died a year later when we were fixing 'false' ceiling in our house to escape from our harsh summer (atleast we believed that we will escape). The carpenters at work had gone was lunch, leaving their 'saw' and some waste thermocols lying around. I wanted to try my hand at carpentry once again and started to saw the thermocols as i did not find any unused wood. And I scratched toes in my right leg (with which I was holding the thermo in place while sawing) as I did not think that thermocol will be cut much faster and easier than wood. And thus ended my dream of carpentry.