Mr. Triloki Nagpal is a Mechanical Engineer from the prestigious Birla Institute of Technology (B.I.T.), Mesra, Ranchi. He has written a book about his five years stay in the hostel of BIT from 1963 to 1968. In those days there was no WiFi, no computers, no mobile phones and no calculators. Life then was very different from what it is today.  One had to depend upon the trunk call services of the Central Telegraph Office for making a call home. One had to use a Slide Rule to make calculations. Snail mail was the best way of communication and the postman was one's best friend. Mr. Nagpal has written in a very lucid style all about the times of those days.

The book takes us on a journey of the metamorphosis of a young immature seventeen year old boy into a mature young man of twenty two, ready to take on the world as an Engineering Graduate. It is all about the experimentation, apprehensions, and exposures faced by him and others of his age, during these five years away from the protected environment of their homes. Reading about the home sickness, fun times, ragging, planchette, ghost sightings seems all too familiar, as anyone who has studied in a residential college will be able to recall and relive some of these incidents narrated in the book.  

Triloki Nagpal came from a very protected and cared for environment of his home, where he commanded a special place as he was born after five girls in the family. From his pampered life at home to a hostel with indifferent vegetarian food, from the metropolitan cities of Calcutta and New Delhi to Mesra which was  back of the beyond place and the nearest town Ranchi which then had only two platforms at the railway station, the book takes us on an interesting journey down memory lane.

Although in fifty years technology in the world has changed a lot yet the trials and tribulations of youth still remain the same.  

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