This story is from February 17, 2019

Alumnus recalls his college days, shares memory of ferocious dog

Alumnus recalls his college days, shares memory of ferocious dog
The ever-so-young engineers from the 1959 batch stand hand-in-hand.
CHANDIGARH: As a student of electrical engineering at Punjab Engineering College (PEC), Shalabh Kumar, founder of the Republican Hindu Coalition, memory of a ferocious dog attacking him at 4am, while working in a lab, is still etched in his mind. The incident became famous at PEC, recalls Kumar, who was at PEC’s grand alumni meet.
Recalling the famous 4am incident when he was a student at PEC in 1968, he said: “Typical practice is to design a circuit on a paper and get it approved by a professor.
But, I wanted to actually build the product. Dr J S Bajwa was a graduate from the Ohio State University in the US and he encouraged me to build the product. It was my habit that I could work without food and sleep for seven days straight. It was the third or the fourth day when I was deeply engrossed in making this phase meter. I was in the lab and it was 4am and a ferocious dog attacked me. As I tried to free myself and looked outside the window, I found that the principal of the college was standing there, who was out for a morning walk with his dog. He saw the lights in the lab on and thought that there was a burglary. So, he sent his dog to see what was going on. When he realised that it was a student, he called his dog back and asked me what was I doing? So, I told him that I was working on my design. The next day he told the whole college about my project.”
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Shalabh Kumar from 1968 batch.
Kumar said he got his first job on the basis of that phase meter. He said he lived in Kota, Abohar, Khanna in Punjab, Amritsar and then Chandigarh before moving to the US.
While addressing mediapersons at PEC on Saturday, he said his mother who was against corruption and that had always influenced him. He started a student organisation called NACO.
“As a student, I saw the first corruption that the movie ticket priced at Re 1 was being sold at Rs 5 or Rs 10. I led a march of 500 students to the Jagat Theatre and I was made to stand up on a platform to deliver a speech. The police came and we ran away from the scene,” recalled Kumar.
He said he was always interested in public policy even as a student of the college. Recalling another incident, he said his friend Sansar Singh faced a problem at the Panjab University. “The university authorities were failing him again and again and that is when I organised a strike, which continued for three weeks in 1966. After the protest, the university re-investigated my friend’s case and got him reinstated,” said Kumar, who lived at the Jwalamukhi hostel of the college.
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