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Proving Your Salt.




Last week my chemistry teacher told us all to get lab coats and goggles. And this year we were going to have droppers in the reagent bottles. Yes yes, this year things were going to be safer in the chem lab. So on Tuesday we all walked to the lab, coat-clad, feeling proud.

The chemistry lab has the aura of funeral meeting. It is deadly quiet even when a class of forty-two is inside. Then the once friendly chemistry teacher turns severe. She begins to talk in a hard stony voice. “You will not talk to anyone. You will look for reagents yourself and follow the procedure yourself. If any apparatus is broken you will pay. You are to put back the reagents where you found them. We’re short on reagents so don’t perform so and so tests.If I see anyone talking you will be out (pointing to the door). If you have any doubt don’t ask your friends.Come to me.” The last sentence after all instruction did not in the least sound comforting. “Start.”

We took our positions according to roll order. I waited nervously. The two teachers went about ladling salt into the watch-glasses.  I took out my borrowed salt analysis scheme. ‘Note the colour’. It looked white at long shot. I brought it to the end of my nose. It could be colourless. Next, odour. I may have sucked in the whole lot but nada. No smell. I usually relied on the smell. Gone. Now what?! I moved onto the next few tests without much trouble or result. And then came the one. The big one. The terrifying one. The Concentrated H2SO4 Test. I came to a halt. I glanced at the scheme. “...salt is boiled with conc. sulphuric acid”.I no longer noticed what was happening around me. The chink of test tubes and glass rods and the fizzing grew fainter. I could hear myself exhale heavily and cold sweat running down my temples. Now it’s the filmy flashback. Everything in black and white.

A coat-less goggle-less I was standing at the same spot for my final practical exam. My hands were shivering as I tried to pour out the concentrated acid into the test tube. Standing two feet away I gingerly touched the bottom of the test tube to the bright blue flame. Nothing happened. I glanced sideways. People were already flaunting their  blue lakes and golden spangles and flashing victorious grins. I turned to my test tube exasperated.  I sunk it deeper into the flame. It all happened very fast. The thing grew white and started bubbling furiously and made a nasty ‘gidegidegide’ sound. Before I could do anything..Spurt! White spots covered the back of my right hand !Aaaaaaargh! I didn’t stop to think before I tried to wash it off. The acid penetrated to form Big Black Boils! Aaaaaaaaaaaaarghhh! I tore across the lab to Ma’am who threw mounds of some powder at me.
                                                          * * *

I looked at the my right hand at what was remaining of the boils.I inhaled deeply. It’s okay. I ‘ve got the lab coat this time. I have got the scheme.I have got the goggles. Nothing could possibly go wrong. I hurriedly got through the scheme.At the end of the lesson. Ma’am walks up to me “ Amiya, what’s the anion?” “Acetate ma’am.,” I said confidently. The glare! “Cation?” “er..I..I think it’s Pb2+ Ma’am.” She turned expressionless. I can  smell no salt but I sure can smell danger when it comes. “12.50! Clean your apparatus! Out”.

I struggled out of my lab coat when someone came and asked “Didn’t you get the pink ash?”. I could have punched them in the face. It was Magnesium Sulphate! Everybody else had discussed the what the salt was. Ma’am told us not to talk! I said  indignantly. “You actually listened? C’mon it’s not the board exam” . Ah ..the price of obedience.
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