Twenty years back on this day, I touched computers... which of course changed my life forever...
And the thanks goes to one of my odd friend, none other than Bishnu Bissoyi.
Back then (1995), I was doing my graduation at Vikram Dev College, Jeypore. I was staying at VD Hostel. One fine day, my friend Bishnu Bissoyi turned up in my room. Bishnu and me were all classmates throughout since childhood in Nabarangpur. Bishnu was regularly visiting Jeypore to watch movies! He was never a studious student but was more of a athlete and drama guy. He asked me to accompany him to enquire about few computer courses that were running in few institutes in Jeypore. Aptech had just started in Jeypore that time. We started out.
We first thought of visiting Aptech. But since Aptech was nearer (located at JagatJanani market complex underground) to VD Hostel, we thought to explore it at the end. So we started to look out for any other computer institute other than Aptech. Near Urvashi Hotel, Jeypore, we found one instiute named BDPS (Bureau of Data Processing System). Why it was a Bureau, only the founders (Manoj Hota) can tell! It was a black glass door. We entered inside and we were greeted by a smiling lady named Mita Khilar who told us that there is one entrance test is about to begin and the topper will get a 50% discount on a PGDCA course. So Bishnu enrolled for the test. But he also dragged me to just appear for the test to give him company. Anyway the registration was free so I just appeared for the entrance test alongwith him. It was some GK and aptitude sort of questions as far as I remember. After the test, we just enquired about fees and all and came out. Then we visited Aptech. The Aptech boss (Forgot the guy's name who also ran some Titan institute of Computer Science in Jeypore) was too bossy. He even promised of providing placement(!). Anyway, We two figured out that this computer career could be an alternate career path. Bishnu left for Nabarangpur.
After two days, I visited BDPS institute again. In the notice board of the front desk, I found my name written in big bold letters. Guess what! I was the topper in that entrance test. Bishnu didn't make it. So Mita Khilar now with doubled smile in her face congratulated me and explained about the courses. Obviously I didn't understand much of what she spoke. All I understood was that the course fee was Rs. 10k and I was getting that course for Rs. 5k. Back then, 5k was quite a big amount. She told me to inform Bishnu as well as he was getting a discount of Rs. 1000. I told her that I will get back after discussing with my family.
That weekend I visited home, told my Mom. Mom thought computers would be great (Which she repents now!). Back then I was still too fearful of my dad. Like any other guy of that generation, I lacked courage to speak to Dad. So Mom was ready to finance it and I was joyful. I told Bishnu, if he's willing to, but Bishnu showed no interest that time and he told me to try it out and give him feedback.
I joined that PGDCA course at BDPS. Met the MD Manoj Hota. I visited their lab and the classroom. aluminum push doors, Wheelchairs, extra lit Lab all were looking fascinating to me. Forget lab, Whiteboard and marker pens were something which I had never seen in my life. In the lab, I was made sit before a 286 machine with a CGA monitor. DOSTutor (A tutorial for DOS) was something Mita Khilar played(!) from a 1.2" floppy. I was just reading it word by word... scrolling and pressing enter key as instructed. After some one hour, I got bored. Other guys were playing PacMan and Billiards in the nearby computer. I asked Mita Khilar, If I can play Billiard. "Oh sure...why not" - Mita Khilar exulted and came with a 1.2" floppy inserted it, put the latch, typed A: and then typed 'Billards' (Took me months to understand why it was Billards ( 8.3 letter filename standard of DOS) and not billiards). Playing Billards was fun and I enjoyed it like anything.
That BDPS's PGDCA course was for 1 year. But I dragged it for 4 years... Thanks to some of the wonderful people on earth I met with.
In that BDPS period (1995-1999), I saw evolution of computers. One fine day I discovered a VGA monitor. Another day a 1.44" floppy, another day a handscanner (a mouse like scanner), another day a joystick. The first hard disk I used was a 40MB one. So was about the softwares. DOS 6.22 (BDPS was boasting that time to have 6.22 because Aptech was still using DOS 5.0 !), Basic, wordstar, Print magic, lotus123, turbo pascal, turbo c, flow, word perfect, dBase, foxBase. I still remember various job works were done that time at BDPS like job application forms were being designed in Flow, greeting cards in Print Magic. Wordstar was for typing and formatting a document. At BDPS, We knew two master minds in programming that time; Sashank sir for Prolog and Amit sir for Clipper. There were very few takers for Turbo Pascal and Turbo C. One fine day, I saw Manoj Hota sir carrying some 30 odd 1.44" floppy disks, next day I came to know he was installing Windows 3.1. I used mouse for the first time in Windows 3.1. People used to coin interesting questions like "Why it was called Windows". The answer was like "Because the door is DOS". It was based on the fact that one has to type 'win' in order to launch Windows. Later all systems were of Windows 3.11. Then of course it was automatic transition to Microsoft Office Word 6.0, Excel 6.0 from Word star and Lotus 123. It was a grand transition from CLI to GUI. Similarly, from dBase to foxBase to FoxPro 2.5 to FoxFro 2.6 to Oracle and Paradox in between, I have seen the transition. Meanwhile, had a chance to see a color monitor. Next best thing, I saw was a CD ROM. Towards end of 1996, all of BDPS computers were put into network. Novell Netware ( some 30 odd 1.44" floppy disks again) was the Network software. Towards beginning of 1997, I saw Amit sir installing Windows 95. And seeing the flashy Windows 95 logo rendered on screen was one WoW moment. And listening to songs with windows media player was again one ecstatic moment. Then of course, music with Winamp and video with Zing player became our standard.
1997 was also the year when Internet came to Jeypore. With a dial up modem internet connection, yahoo.com was the only site I had heard of somehow and was the first site I surfed. Lycos, askjeeves were the search engines. Hotmail was not yet hot in Jeypore that time. I created my first email id in yahoo (swarupananda@yahoo.com) which I still use till date.
Towards end of 1997 got a chance to see SCO Unix running! In my BDPS stay, I had a chance to learn little of almost everything. I learned wordstar, lotus123, dos batch files, flow, unix, dBase, Foxpro, Oracle, Pascal, C. I am forever indebted to Susanta Kumar Moharana who taught me Pascal. I was very fond of graphics and I thought of created a video game Brain Vitae. Susanta sir helped me a lot in that task. Later he rewrote it entirely and took it to professional video game developer level. I still possess that pascal code. Thanks to that now-invisible man for setting up my entire programming foundation.
Another man who gave a direction to my life was Late Amitav Satapathy. He was the man who introduced western music to me - George Michael, Michael Bolton, Chris Rea, Brian Adam, Kenny G, Modern Talking, Enigma and many others. He died an unbelievable death at a very young age. He was my friend, philosopher and guide. He was one guru in my life, who taught me so many other things of life other than mundane subject like Oracle.
That BPDS stint was one awesome part of my life. Thanks to people who made my life live. Thanks to Mita Khilar, Manoj Hota. Late Amitav Satapathy, Rajat Kar, Susanta Moharana, Sasanka Sekhar Gantayat, Aniruddh Tripathy, Kabita Sahu, M. Srinivas, Bibhuprasad Sahu, Babita Sahu, K. S. N. Srilata (Talluri Srilata), Jayanti, Jitendra Prasad Moharana, P. K. Mishra, Brojo Kishore Mishra, Deba prasad Khadanga, Devi Prasad Hota, Sasmita Mallick, Sangeeta Bhoi, R. Tanuja Choudhury, Diwakar Choudhury, Bharat Mohanty, Subrat Dakua, Siddharth Gantayat, Swetashree Senapati, Foxpro Anil, Office boy Shekhar and so many other people I came across.
~Swarup
