chandigarh sitting in the first row of the auditorium were four gentlemen looking extremely at ease with the surroundings as if they had come home while two of them had their stuffs on their sides one of them was seen holding a memento the fourth one was sunk in his seat wearing a hat i always wear this hat you know since now i have no hair said harbans singh saini 97 the eldest one among the four oldest alumni who turned up for punjab engineering colleges pec alumni meet 2018 held on saturdayreminiscing about their bygone days as students of this college while it was still in lahore now in pakistan er b s grewal 95 brigadier retd gobinder singh 93 and er gurlal singh tandon 93 alongwith harbans singh saini 97 spoke about their experiences as students and how their lives changed postpartition in 1947 while grewal and saini are from the 1943 batch singh and tandon are from the 1947 batch of the institution there was a lot of hue and cry during the time of partition when i came to india with my family we people of india and pakistan were free birds in lahore but the partition tied us said er b s grewal with a straight face almost staring into middistanceafter partition grewal moved to ambala cantonment in haryana and was the sdo then however he later moved to the punjab government departments and retired as a chief engineer in 1971 it feels like a lifetime now the building of our college was too huge and had large doors and was very airy said grewal with bubbling enthusiasm we are from the earliest batch attending this event today there is no one more senior to us declared saini while finding his place in the alley saini who retired as the chief engineer irrigation in 1980 went abroad to study from the university of tennessee and graduated in hydraulics when he came back to india in the year 194647 he was recognised as the only indian with a qualification in hydraulics then said ranjan mohan singh his son saini also opted to teach in pec when he was asked to set up a department for engineering in hydraulicswhen asked about the address of the college in lahore the alumni retorted in unison saying mughalpura town close to mughal gardens there was also a sikh national college almost a mile before our college they addedgobinder singh who was a freedom fighter was also a part of the quit india movement and spent 10 months in borstal jail lahore now in pakistan along with late former prime minister i k gujaral we used to be handcuffed together he said i remember spending time with gurlal another batchmate from 1947 under a tree in the backyard of our college he added with a smile however gurlal singh 93 who retired as a chief engineer was a meritorious student of his batch back in 1947 at that time civil