Having decided to choose teaching as a career, the next step was naturally to decide where to start my career. Securing the first rank from the Kerala University with almost 80% marks in the aggregate was reasonably good enough to secure an appointment as a lecturer in any one of the colleges in Kerala at that time as the minimum qualification required was only a first-class degree in engineering. My brother who passed B A (Hons) from University College, Kerala suggested it will be better to take up the post of a provisional lecturer in College of Engineering Thiruvananthapuram (CET) as a short-term measure before applying through the Kerala Public Service Commission for a regular appointment. Being in TVM , he said, it will be easier to get necessary reading material for preparing for national competitive examinations like Indian Railway Services (IRSE) or even Indian Administrative Services (IAS), if I am interested. So, my first option was to get a provisional appointment as lecturer in CET.
After the
results of the engineering
examination were announced, it was
necessary to get a provisional
certificate from the university before formal degree
is awarded at a convocation. I reached
TVM and on enquiry at the
university office, I was told that it will
take a few days for this
certificate to be issued. I took a room in a cheap lodge near secretariat. In
the evening, as I had nothing
to do, I was just watching the passers-by near the statue
when one of my dear teachers Sri. G.Madhusudhanan Nair was just passing
by in his car spotted me and stopped his car and called me. “ Hey Mohan, what are you
doing here?”. I told him “ Sir, I am staying here in a lodge
and waiting for collecting my provisional certificate”. He told me
to run to the lodge, collect my belongings and come over to the car so that I can stay with him. I was reluctant but had
to obey his affectionate order. We went to Poojapura where he
introduced me to his wife and son, elder brother of
Sri.M.Jayachandran, the music director.
I was given a comfortable room and had practically nothing to do except
eating their sumptuous food and sleeping. Fortunately for me, next day MadhuSir brought a
bundle of answer papers of some
competitive examinations and asked
me to value those papers . I
was very happy to do that as this was a nice way of
doing something useful for my teacher. In fact, GMN had
been to TKMCE on leave from KSEB
and had returned to KSEB after
his stint as teacher.
While discussing my career, he
directed me to register in the Professional
and Executive Employment Exchange
near the university as early as
possible with him as guardian and residential address. He was also suggesting there is no need
for a formal employment, if my
aim is to prepare for competitive
exams. To earn some money, he said, he
can arrange for some tuition
class for engineering students ,
if I am interested. Anyway, I
approached the Director
of Technical Education Prof K C
Chacko to explore the possibility of a
provisional appointment in CET.
This took an interesting turn.
In fact, after passing out from Pre-University class
in 1963, I had applied for both
medicine and engineering. As I had
only 35/50 marks for physics, I could not get
admission for medicine or even engineering in the first chance. The chance interview was held
in DTE’s office and it was
Prof K C Chacko who directed me to TKMCE as I was hailing
from Alappuzha, in spite of
my request for
allowing me to join CET as my first choice. However, I never regretted joining
TKMCE as TKMCE was doing
extremely well in academics and discipline at that time.
On seeing him at
his office , I introduced myself as
one who passed out from
TKMCE with first
class distinction and first rank from the university and stated that I am interested in getting a provisional
appointment in CET as lecturer. He
was a little surprised when I said I was the
first rank holder from TKMCE and was
not very happy about it. Then, I added further, Sir, this time all the three first ranks in EE, ME
and CE are in TKMCE, just to add to
his displeasure. As for the
provisional appointment, he said he
is being relieved as DTE soon
to join as Pro Vice Chancellor
of Calicut University and he
advised me to approach Prof T C George who will
soon take over as DTE. I
approached him too, and he told me he is helpless as he has
not even taken charge. Meanwhile
I received a message from my own
alma mater TKMCE appointing me as lecturer without even my sending a formal application. Only condition was that I
will not be allowed to discontinue during the
middle of the academic year. Thus, I joined
TKMCE Kollam as lecturer on 9th Sept 1968. I was assigned to teach Generation Switch gear and Protection to my immediate juniors, many of them my
close friends a few months
back.
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