Reminiscences of Pelletron Days

  Ladies  and  Gentlemen ,

                                    Good Morning. The previous speaker showed a slide of the Acceptance Report for the 14UD Pelletron accelerator when it was commissioned in 1988. Well, I am one of the two guys who had signed that report, the other one being Dr. K.G. Prasad who is also around here today. For those of you who may not have seen me here before, I was working here in Pelletron for nearly ten years from 1983 till my retirement in 1993. I was in the original team of scientists and technicians who worked during the installation of the Pelletron accelerator. So, when I visited the Pelletron section this morning, it was after nearly twenty years. Naturally, I was overcome by  nostalgic memories of my good old days in Pelletron,
which came back flooding in my mind; I would like to share with you one or two interesting incidents which I can still remember very vividly, though I may have forgotten many other things about Pelletron,  like the SNICS source, the BPM, CAMAC etc. Before I left home this morning, my wife had specifically warned me not to narrate more than one or two incidents, because, she said, “Once you start talking about your Pelletron days, you go on and on for hours together and no one can stop you. But, remember there will be others like you waiting to speak after you about their own experiences.” So, I will restrict myself to just two incidents that come to my mind right now. By the way, I would like to mention here that I have already written two short stories about my experiences in Pelletron, ---- “Atithi  Devo Bhav” and “Four Desperate Hours” ----- both of which are based on real life incidents that took place here in Pelletron in the eightees. Since these short stories have been published in the Tenshops’ Blog, which some of you might have seen already,  I will not talk about them any further.

            The first incident I would like to talk about today is about the Pelletron tank. As you all probably know, we had purchased the 14UD Pelletron accelerator, as a package deal, from its manufacturer, National Electrostatics Corporation of USA and as such, we had nothing much to do with its installation, per se, as that was all left to the NEC engineers. However, we were supposed to provide them with all the necessary ground support and the infra-structure. The huge steel tank, which houses the Pelletron accelerator and which is about 100 ft. long, 18 ft. in diameter and about 120 tons in weight, was all manufactured by a local engineering firmr, named M/s. Lloyds Steel (Pvt) Limited. The massive steel tank had then to be transported by road across the city all the way from their factory in Andheri to TIFR in Colaba. It took nearly two days and three nights to move the tank through a distance of just 15 km.   The huge tank was transported on an equally big and long trailer-truck, which moved on the roads of Mumbai at a snail’s speed of about 1 km. per hour. In order to avoid the heavy traffic in the city during the daytime, we would move the tank only during the nights. We made two haults during the entire journey --- one at Bandra in front of a building called, “Matoshri” and the other was at the Wholesale Market in Byculla. We  finally reached our destination in Colaba on the third night.

           

           On the first night, when we arrived at the Lloyds Steel factory in Andheri, we found that the huge, steel tank was already mounted on the trailer truck, neatly tied down with ropes and some people were busy fixing the tyres on the trailer wheels, which were about sixty in number. Our transport contractor was a hefty Sardar, who had come all prepared in a typical, Punjabi ‘Lehenga and Kurta’ and armed to the hilt with a Kirpan on his belt and a rifle slung on his back! He had with him a crew of more than about twenty people, many of them being laborers armed with pickaxes, shovels and crowbars. There were also two 15ft. long poles of bamboo, each with a small steel hook attached at one end, placed by the side of the tank on the truck.  We did not understand at first the real purpose behind all this careful preparation. Later, we found that whenever they came by an electrical cable running across the road, two persons would get down from the truck, stand on each side of the road and using the 15ft. long bamboos to raise the cable by a few feet they would let the tank pass underneath. Whenever there was some impediment on the road, like a speed-breaker, a road divider or a signal box, the laborers would get busy with their implements to destroy and remove the obstruction out of the way in a matter of minutes. Our project manager, Dr. Sharma soon got worried that ultimately he might have to pay through his nose for all this destruction out of his own, meager Pelletron budget, but our Sardar told him not to worry --- for, once the transportation work was over, he would  visit the BMC and personally take care of everything!  No wonder, he was charging us some few lakhs rupees for transporting the tank!!

           When we reached Bandra early next morning, the huge truck with the massive tank was parked by the side of the road and  the contractor’s men promptly proceeded to remove all the sixty tyres from the wheels and stack them neatly, one on top of other, by the side of the truck. At first I thought, the contractor, being a Sardar, was merely ensuring that someone wouldn’t run away with our tank while it was parked during the day. “No. For that, I have to only remove the Diesel or the Ignition key!. But, we are removing the tyres mainly to reduce RTO’s Wheel Tax bill, which, at the current rate of Rs.50/- per wheel per hour, amounts to about Rs.45,000/- every day!  So, you see, No Wheels - No Wheel Tax!!”

            That evening, we started our journey again and as we approached the Tilak Bridge, I got worried if the bridge would be able to take the 120 tonne weight of the tank. But, Lloyds Steel engineers had done their homework well and they knew that the Tilak Bridge was built in 1920, during the British period, by British engineers, who would have over-designed it and in any case, the Indian Railways had assured them that they could see no problem in crossing the bridge with a 120 tonnes, steel tank. There was only one more bridge en route, viz., the Railway Bridge at Byculla. Luckily for us, those days there were none of the flyovers constructed yet anywhere in Mumbai! We safely crossed the Tilak Bridge in Dadar and proceeded further with almost no other major problems. Early morning of the third night at about 5:00 a.m. we safely reached our destination at TIFR. We parked the tank near the Naval Swimming Pool behind the  TIFR campus and waited for the tank to be unloaded next morning and then, it was eventually erected on its 12 m. high concrete pedestal, which was to be its final resting place.

            I went to my room in the lab and rested for a while waiting for the TIFR Canteens to open in the morning so I could have my breakfast before I returned home. Just then, my telephone started ringing incessantly. Wondering who could be wanting to talk to me at that unearthly hour, I picked up the phone and said ‘hello’ into it. A somewhat irate voice of a lady at the other end of the line asked me if I could please tell her the time of the day. “I think it’s about 7:00 a.m in the morning” I said innocently and the lady at the other end promptly snapped back at me: “You Fool! Don’t you feel ashamed of yourself to tell me so coolly that it’s just seven in the morning. Do you realize you have not come back home for the last three days?” Oh, my God!  It must be my wife, I thought. For, it was true that for the last three days we had not actually seen each other; I was out almost the whole night and by the time I returned home in the morning, she would have already left the house for work and when she returned home in the evening, I would be already gone for next day's "Tank Yatra"!  I did try to explain all this to my wife telling her how we were in the process of shifting a hundred ton heavy steel tank by road all across the city from Andheri to Colaba, but she was obviously in just no mood to listen to me!!

“Don’t you tell me all that crap, Mister! All along, I thought you were commandant on INS Vikrant. Yesterday, you told me that you’ have been transferred to a submarine and today, you're telling me you're on some bloody tanker, which you're trying to move on the road! Now, do you take me for a simpleton or a fool not to even know that large tankers can float on water? And tell me why on earth are you taking your blessed tanker by the road and not by sea? I just don’t believe it!” Then, she switched over and gave me some of the choicest ‘gaalis’ in chaste Punjabi! I knew then that this couldn’t be my wife!

“May I know, who I’m speaking to, please?” I asked hesitantly.

“Yes, you may. I am your WIFE, you Dope! Well, for your information, I am Mrs. Malhotra, wife of Commodore Malhotra, is that clear? Now, don’t tell me you did not even recognize my voice.”

Oh! Now it was very clear to me as to what must have happened. You see, when we entered the Navy Nagar area that morning, we had found some Telephone cables hanging across the road and interfering with our tank’s progress. So, two of our Sardar’s assistants had promptly climbed the trees and cut the cables making way for our tank and had immediately connected them back after the tank had passed through. But, while reconnecting, they must have goofed up somewhere so that, now, all the Navy Nagar telephone lines had got connected to TIFR and all the TIFR lines were connected to Navy Nagar !  So, for the next two days, until all the telephone lines were properly and fully restored, all the Naval Officers must have had a hectic time, while the poor TIFR Professors had to face some ‘music’!!     

            There is another interesting incident that comes to my mind today. It has to do with the giant, two-way Analysing Magnet which is installed just below the Pelletron tank. The erection of the Pelletron column and its two Accelerating Tubes had almost been completed and we were slowly but positively marching towards the completion of our project, when, suddenly one day during a routine check-up we found that the vacuum chamber of the Analysing Magnet had sprung a micro-leak. We had detected the leak using a helium leak detector. No one really wanted a vacuum leak anywhere at this stage --- and least of all in the Analysing Magnet chamber ---- what with the project almost nearing completion. This was because, as you all know, repairing the leak now would mean an unnecessary delay of at least two months because the entire Analysing Magnet assembly would have to be dismantled first and the vacuum chamber accessed before the leak could be pinpointed and mended and finally, the magnet would have to be re-assembled again. So, it would mean a break of at least a month or two before we were back in business. There followed several lengthy meetings and heated discussions on the various possible best procedures we should adopt next, when an unexpected thing occurred: another group of technicians, who had an independent go at the leak-hunting, found no leak in the magnet chamber! While the first group vouched that they had seen a clear indication of  a micro-leak on the helium leak detector, the second group insisted with equal vehemence that the magnet chamber was absolutely leaktight!! So, soon a big controversy developed around the elusive micro-leak in the magnet chamber, dividing us all into two staunch groups: one group,(whom we could call “Theists”) believed both in the existence of God as well as the existence of a vacuum leak in the chamber while the second group, whom we may call “Atheists”, not only also believed in God, but they also strongly believed that there was no leak whatsoever in the magnet chamber and that it was all a figment of one’s imagination!  

            After much deliberation and a long meeting that went on upto 7:00 p.m that evening, the Pelletron Steering Committee finally came to a  ' very clever ' conclusion in this regard: it steered itself out of the tricky situation by leaving the final decision to the sole discretion of the Project Director, Dr. Kapur ! The poor Dr. Kapur’s position was no better than that of Shakespeare’s Hamlet; “To open or not to open the magnet chamber is the real question” he lamented. “Whatever decision I may take now, it is going to be proved wrong in the final analysis. What options do I really have?”

           “Well, Sir, we had positively seen a leak indication in the helium leak detector, the other day and we have confirmed it again and again.” I said “However, it’s also equally true that there’s no leak in the chamber, right now. So, even if we opened the magnet now, I’m not sure we will be able to locate the leak. Probably, for all you know, it has got temporarily blocked by a dust particle or something and there’s no saying that it will not open up ever again. It can reappear any day, probably even on the Inauguration Day!” So, he decided not to open the magnet chamber now and face the consequences, come what may.

            For the next few months, Dr. Kapur was the most worried man around in the Pelletron. Group. Every second day, he would give me a ring in the middle of the night and make discreet enquiries about the current status of vacuum in the Magnet Chamber! Even on the Inauguration Day, while Dr. M.G.K. Menon was delivering his presidential address on the podium, he took me aside and whispered softly into my ears, “Everything alright in Pelletron, No?”

“Yes, All is Well! ------ including vacuum in the Magnet Chamber!! ”