MY FIRST EXPERIENCE OF THE COLLEGE LABORATORY

It was the first week of July. Our college had just started. We had our first turn of the physics practicals. Earlier our professor had told us that we would have to spend about three hours continuously for practical work. This was quite different from the practical work in school. In school we usually devoted half an hour or sometimes an hour to perform an experiment.

As I entered the laboratory I was surprised by the size of the laboratory. It was a very big hall. There were big tables in the laboratory for performing experiments.

It being our first visit to the laboratory our professor explained to us the importance of experimental work in the study of science and the method we were usually expected to follow.

lawyer's, a merchant's and a bank-clerk's. All these people make a colourful combination of diverse people with diverse pursuits in life. The professor is no doubt a good man but a little absent-minded. For instance, last month, he borrowed a hundred rupees from my father but he believes that he had lent hundred rupees to my father. He once asked my father to return the loan as soon as possible!

The engineer occupies the flat above us. He is a hen-pecked husband. His wife throws all the rubbish out of the window. A great deal of the rubbish falls in our balcony. We have often complained to her but to no avail. We have to put up with all this with philosophic calm. The lawyer is in the regular habit of arguing and quarreling with his wife. But she is more than a match for him. The poor fellow is then forced to keep quiet. The merchant is a chain-smoker and so we jokingly call him the 'chimney'. But we rarely see him home during the day time, as he is mostly busy in his shop.

The bank clerk is fond of singing in his bath-room. He is under the illusion that he is an expert vocalist. There are three babies, six school-going children, two collegians, and a dog in the building. The principal occupation of the babies is to go on crying far into the night! The dog thinks that it is his sacred duty to chew up our shoes. Far from being useful to us, he has become an intolerable nuisance. Children often quarrel while playing. But they soon patch up their quarrels and come together. They help one another in studies. Sometimes the elders quarrel when one of the boys accidentally breaks a window-pane while playing cricket in the compound. However, we come together in the true spirit of co-operation and celebrate the festivals like Holi and Diwali happily together. We come together during the celebration of festivals and social ceremonies. We stand by one another in periods of emergencies or illness.