Summer Internship with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation — Nikhil Gupta from IIT BHU
Nikhil’s entry won the Editor’s Choice award for Best Love Story — read on to find out more!
Daily winner for: – 29th August 2012
Name of the intern: – Nikhil Gupta
Institute: – IIT BHU
Organization interned with: – Delhi Metro Rail Corporation
Let’s be honest here. No one wants to read the account of an IITian undergoing an internship, industrial training at that. His experience would only comprise of slogging through his daylight hours amidst gigantic machines among the most chick-repelling guys of the country. At least, that is what the clichéd opinion of the public is. But as far as my internship was concerned, there was no slogging, there were gigantic machines all right, but the best part was that there were no chick-repelling guys. Instead, there was this girl who, coincidentally was in the same college as me and, you’re not going to believe it, in the same batch too. For a year, we were in the same batch and we barely knew of each other’s existence. And given the quality of girls at IIT, she was actually pretty. Now you know what I mean when I say, “chick-repelling”.
There was a formal hello the first day and she was focused to go about her business sincerely. I, on the other hand, was doing this internship because I had nothing better to do all summer. Two of us, being the only interns at the depot (wow, right?), that created a conflict of sorts. So every time the trainer was instructing us, she was all ears. I was all eyes, of course, trying to steal every chance I could get to glance at her. However our instructor was quite enthusiastic about telling us how Delhi Metro worked. It seemed fascinating at first; power was taken from a Power Corporation nearby, transformed to a lower voltage by Traction Transformers, transmitted via various components, and then transformed further down to be of any usable value. He even told us about the catenary wires, contact wires and what not but frankly I had started to lose interest quite soon.
The training involved a lot of travelling. At over 40 degrees it isn’t easy to walk around Delhi roads to reach some substations just to learn about metro. But, to my surprise, it didn’t hurt a bit. I would intentionally lose track of the road, take a wrong turn somewhere and we had to walk at least a mile extra each day. Thankfully, of course, she was not put up in Delhi and took my mischief for naivety. At substations, there were these gigantic and awe-inspiring transformers, and none of them looked like Optimus Prime and Bumlebee. But transformers, relays, circuit breakers always fascinated her, not me, or so it seemed. She would ask questions every time the trainer instructed us. He once noticed my lack of interest and commented, “If you have problem understanding English, I can instruct in Hindi too.” I was, obviously mortified but watching her laugh as hard as she did that day stirred my pain into elation.
Five days later, I actually asked her out. She had no option that day but to comply because the trainer was on leave (praise the Lord!) and she had hours to kill. We went out to bowl at a mall nearby and then there was no turning back. Conversations about current and voltage transformers were replaced by discussions on strikes and splits, sometimes movies too, and sometimes coffee. Trainer or no trainer, we bunked and hung out daily. Time just flew away. It was the last day and we had to submit a report and sit for a viva. I made the report, all right, copying almost everything I could from her report. But, my real problem started when the trainer started asking us questions about what I had learnt at Delhi Metro. Her answers were spontaneous, crisp, intelligent and quick. Mine, on the other hand consisted mostly of “I don’t know.” He made a few comments about my small brain but I didn’t get offended because it made her laugh. Finally, the training came to an end and the very next day she left. This account would not deal with what happened next. After all, the competition is titled, “My Internship Story”, not “My Love Story”, if you know what I mean.
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