Breakage

The college life comes with some unexpected expenses. One of such unexpected expenses was the breakage charge. In my college irrespective of whether one breaks any tools or equipments, each and every student was required to pay a fixed breaking charge. It used to be rs 500 per student. The breakage charge would get announced just a day before the practical exams. If the student did not pay the breakage charge then that student would not be allowed to attend the practical exams. Needless to say the rules in my college were brutal.

Thankfully our college seniors had already informed us of this fact. One of my seniors told me straight on my face, "even if you are a careful and did not break anything they are still going to ask you to pay rupees 500. Rather than that be careless and break the equipments". At first I did not take his advice seriously but later realised that it was nothing but sensible.

In the first year of my college I was very careful with the equipments. Despite being clumsy I had not broken a single equipment or tool. Still at the end of the year I was asked to pay the breakage charge. When I questioned, they told me that it was charged to every student irrespective of whether they did any breakage. This was my cue to start becoming more careless with the equipments.

Though not intentionally I had broken a couple of really expensive tools during my academic life. In the second year while washing the equipment I fell down. With me I had taken the Neubauer chamber (hemocytometer) with me. I got injured and the hemocytometer broke. It was my first major breakage of my academic life. Later I found out that it cost a proximately rs 1100.

In the third year of my college I had an accident while performing iodometric titration. While performing the experiment the iodometric flask cracked. The accident was a minor one but it costed life of an iodometric flask. I got to know later that the iodometric flask costed around rs 900.

In both second and the third year I was still charged rupees 500 for the breakage. In my final year I decided to be more careful with the equipments. But still nothing could save the equipments from my clumsiness. While performing an experiment a slimy alkaline reagent made my hands slippery and I could not hold on to a Buchner's flask in my hand. The flash broke and again that breakage was registered on my name. This flask costed around rupees 700.

As per the rules of my college we were required to pay the breakage charge from first to third year and in the final year no breakage charge was to be accepted from the students. Overall I had paid rs 1500 as the breakage charge in my college. However the damage that I had done costed the college approximately rupees 2700 - almost twice the amount that I had paid to the college.

Thankfully my college administration did not approach me to pay the difference. Even after 10 years from completing the graduation I still feel guilty for being clumsy and causing use damages to the college equipments, though unintentionally.