On the afternoon of July 11, 1964, the air in the bowl-shaped amphitheatre at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) crackled with nervous energy.
The institute, all of five at the time, had successfully produced its first batch of qualified scientists and engineers. After delivering the convocation address, Dr. S Radhakrishnan the then President of India, awarded 92 graduates and 15 postgraduates their degrees.
At that moment, 20-year-old B.Tech graduate R. Mahadevan had been blissfully unaware of the history he was creating along with his batchmates. Fifty years on, he recalls, “Only when I realise it was none other than the President of the country addressing us, it strikes me we were part of something special.”
Special they were, and how. With the institute having been born out of an Indo–German alliance in 1959, much of the faculty in the initial years comprised the best of German minds.
Mahadevan nostalgically recounts, “Professor Coch who taught physics was a brilliant man, but to decipher his accented English was a feat in itself. Ts were often garbled with S — thus to ‘think’ became to ‘sink’.”
Surprise exams, open book tests and intensive workshop sessions were typical of the German training the institute swore by. The engineering degree lasted five years, instead of the four-year period that is the norm now.
Apart from the emphasis on the cerebral, students also shared their space with a fair bit of wildlife. According to S. Srinivasan, an alumnus of the same batch, deer, mongoose and snakes were easier to spot than fellow human beings. Women were an even more elusive sight on the campus. It was only around 1963 women were inducted into the institute.
The first year when the structures were still being constructed, classes were conducted in the A.C. college of Technology (now in the premises of Guindy Engineering College).
Mahadevan recounts, “We were put up in the old women’s hostel in Saidapet. Every day, we would pay 2 annas to the boatman, to cross the Adyar river to get to class.”
A lot has changed since the first batch of IIT-M graduated. This and much more will be topics of conversation, come December, when the first batch will reunite in the golden jubilee celebrations of the prestigious institute.
