Of dams and dhabas

It was sheer luck that we, about 30 students from BITS Pilani, went to see Bhakra Dam under construction. But, believe me, the sight of Bhakra under construction back in 1953–54 was etched in our immature engineers’ minds and lingers on even today!

One of the reasons we went to see the dam under construction was so we could go to the site to see for ourselves the gigantic scale of the construction and the involvement of the technical staff at work, and I learned that more than half of the three hundred or so engineers were from BITS Pilani!

The pouring of concrete is a continuous process! When we saw the construction, the concrete pouring that was required at the site was itself a new concept for most of us, about 30 students. The rock, which was in the form of huge boulders, was crushed to get chips of the required size, and these were used directly in making concrete.

One very novel idea was the use of ice-cold water for the concrete mix. This is to prevent the mix from getting heated during the setting of the concrete, as this might cause cracks in the concrete while setting. In fact, even when the concrete was being poured at the site, ice-cold water was circulated through well-laid-out pipelines that remained inside the poured concrete. Once the concrete mix is made, the process has been completed for approximately 300 feet out of the required 850 feet.

We had seen the Nangal dam the previous day. This was a dam 100 feet deep. We went below the water level by walking through the inspection chamber. It was an eerie experience for all of us!

It was not just the construction that had us in thrall. Even the authentic Punjabi food was a unique exposure. Did I tell you that out of the 30 in our group, 14 were from South India and had come north of Madras for the first time? They were yearning for south Indian food, and they soon realised that they had to survive on roti and paranthas with different sabjis served in a dhaba. They felt miserable! At the end, each was served hot milk with cream floating on top in a one-litre tumbler. Some of us in the group knew that refusing to drink this would earn the wrath of the dhabawala. In fact, the dhaba owner and others there had a good laugh at our plight of not being able to drink the hot milk laden with thick cream! In Bhakra, we learned the ABCs of dams and Punjabi dhaba food.