The year was 1983-84. I was in my final year of B Sc (Physics). We had lab sessions twice a week. Since most of the equipments in the lab were quite old, it was impossible to get the readings that confirms to the experiment, especially in the Thermodynamic lab that has heat based practicals.
We had a very senior Professor in charge of our batch, Prof.Ramakrishnan Nair. A man with a heart of gold but a very hard exterior. He signs our Record book but rarely comes to the lab as the lab duty is assigned to a young junior lecturer, Devaraj.
Devraj was an unfriendly character and viewed all students as his enemies. The sentiment was reciprocated by us and locked horns with him regularly.
Since the heat experiments never used to give the proper answers and since Devaraj wont sign the observation book unless the values are within the range, we used to take the expedient way of cooking up the figures so that we finish the experiments.
One day we were hauled up by Devaraj for this and gave us the marching orders to Prof.Ramakrishnan Nair. Devaraj raved and ranted about what we did. We were reaaly embarassed as we held Prof.Ramakrishnan Nair in high esteem and any censure by him would have made us really sad.
But we were astounded by his response. He looked the young lecturer on his eye and said, "Devaraj, the whole purpose of students doing practicals is to reinforce the theory they have studied in the classroom. One can't cook up the figures accurately unless one knows the theory inside out. If they have done it, it means that they understand the theory very well. Then the whole purpose of doing the practicals is achieved. You need to look at the bigger picture. Look at the achievement of objectives and not at the process. Use your commonsense".
Words of Wisdom that I have never forgotten. Systems, procedures and processes are tools to achieve an objective. They should not be an end by themselves.
