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 saturday i remember spending time with gurlal another batchmate from 1947 under a tree in the backyard of our college he added with a smile we used to be handcuffed together he said i think engineering has always been a popular course in india even though each time period has its own type of engineering before i joined pec then known as mclegin college of engineering i did my ba from f c college lahore as well he said i always wear this hat you know it feels like a lifetime now saini who retired as the chief engineer irrigation in 1980 went abroad to study from the university of tennessee and graduated in hydraulics while grewal and saini are from the 1943 batch singh and tandon are from the 1947 batch of the institution 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 middistance nowadays the options have increased reminiscing 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 as if they had come home the four of them were also awarded with mementos specifying their batches and their association to the college there were over 50 muslim male students in our college and we all used to frolic around together 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 however he later moved to the punjab government departments and retired as a chief engineer in 1971 singh later in his life spent a great deal of time with le corbusier and was also a mind behind the design of the assembly building in chandigarh however gurlal singh 93 who retired as a chief engineer was a meritorious student of his batch back in 1947 the fourth one was sunk in his seat wearing a hat 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 when asked about the importance of engineering as a vocational discipline in todays time the four of them seemed hesitant to answer the building of our college was too huge and had large doors and was very airy said grewal with bubbling enthusiasm saini also opted to teach in pec when he was asked to set up a department for engineering in hydraulics while two of them had their stuffs on