Borrowed from SAMPADA old editions – for the 10th Anniversary Special Issue – Interviews section. This one is of Meghashyam, Batch of 1960 EEE.
When we received the mail from Meghashyam sir for the first time, informing us that he has started receiving the e-magazine “SAMPADA” only recently, we felt it would be good knowing more about him. We exchanged couple of mails and realized that he stays in USA. He mentioned “I will be most happy to talk to you about our class, our teachers, and the atmosphere in those 4 years”. He was kind enough to not only share his contact details, but also couple more of his batchmates who are in India as well. We fixed up a time on a Sunday morning, and he called me to have an informal discussion. Here is a snippet from the lovely conversation we had:
Team Sampada : Sir, we would like to know a brief intro about yourself
Meghashyam: I am a graduate of UCE 1956-1960 in Electrical Engineering. I graduated with the highest honours from UCE. Later I studied for a year at the Indian Institute of Science in Electrical Communication Engineering and went on to continue studies at Harvard University and later stepped into Stanford University to get a PhD. In US, I worked at Hewlett Packard for 15 years and later started my own startup which had tie-ups with HP & Texas Instruments.
Team Sampada : Your memories of college days and friends.
Meghashyam: As I recall, we had a relatively small class of 18 people (in Electrical) in the last two years. In Mechanical, the strength was around 40. Electives were introduced during our final year. My electives were Electronics and Mathematics. I had a lot of fun during my four years, but enjoyed the last two years the most.
Out of the 18, around 15 of us travelled abroad and 12 of us secured PhD in various fields. One of my friends, Srinivas Prabhu was a Dean at IIT Kanpur. In 2010, we had a reunion of our class in Bangalore that was attended by 8 of my classmates. We had a lot of fun reuniting after such a long time.
As our class was a very small class, we did not have a regular designated classroom. Instead one of the halls was converted into a class room with a small blackboard and 5 rows of seats 4 on each row. Most classes were held there. We were a very playful fun loving bunch. One major incident that happened during my studies there, the Indian Navy came to interview us for possible positions in the Indian Navy who were really looking for Electrical Engineers. They were very disappointed that none of our classmates were interested in a military career. I do remember Department Head Paul Raju was very disappointed in us.
Team Sampada : Sir please share some of the UCE experiences and thoughts
Meghashyam: The classes would usually start at 7:30 in the morning. I used to stay near Malleshwaram. Most of us would commute via bicycle. I still remember cycling via Race Course Road with a heavy Drawing Board around my arms when we had drawing classes.
We had some very good teachers. They were excellent not only in teaching us the subjects but also in inspiring us. We had a very good relationship with them. They used to guide us and help us in all possible ways. We were given full access to the library and we made the best use of it. We used to borrow the text books for entire 6 month long period. Some of the teachers from that era were Chairman Paul Raju, ME Chair B R Narayana Iyengar, T N Ramakrishna Rao, G Parameshwarappa, Honnesh Gowda, Lakshman Reddy, Gopalaswamy Iyengar, Gundu Rao were memorable teachers.
Our tuition fees was around Rs.100/125 back then. To make it clearer, although it seems like a small amount back then it was a considerable amount in those days. I had secured Scholarship which helped me to reduce the fees burden. Those were the wonderful days.
We also spoke about the current status of the college and the Centenary Year approaching. I promised to keep him posted about the updates and to stay in touch via mail. We thank him for contacting us and sharing his thoughts with us. We would love to interact with more alumni in the similar manner and build the UVCE alumni network.
– Meghashyam, 1960 EEE (From Sampada-83)
