I am a concrete cube. I was produced in a state-of-the art concrete laboratory. I am receiving royal treatment because of my good pedigree. Here I am enjoying a water bath at a very pleasant 27 degree Celsius temperature. Every day there are new comers to this world of concrete cubes. Since I am one of the senior most of the cubes here, I am treated like a leader. In the last one-month or so, I have come across and interacted with a variety of other cubes. This has given me good insight into the world of concrete, concrete cubes, Concrete Engineers and their deeds and misdeeds. Let me share the story of us the cubes and you the Concrete Engineers!

Every year a millions of cubes like me are made and destroyed. As the human race grows and develops, my population is also growing. Off course many of you Engineers prefer to make cylinders and not cubes! But for the sake of this autobiography, I’d choose not to be racial like you humans and include the cylinders in my narration.   

It may come as a surprise to you Engineers to know that every year you make more than 100 million of cubes like me, sufficient to make a four-lane highway of 50 km length.

I cannot but wonder at your intelligence or confidence in your own abilities, if the sole purpose of making and breaking so many of us is just to know that you Engineers have not made inadvertent mistakes or cheated your friends and customers!

Since I, and all my fellow cubes are made by the Engineers, we have been closely watching the human race. By exchanging notes with my brothers, I have learnt a lot about the human beings, particularly about the elite lot called ‘Engineers’. Like you have your God(s), we also have our Gods, in you engineers. While many of you have infallible faith in your God(s), we are not so lucky. Our God(s), the Engineers, are not only imperfect; they are often not honest and knowledgeable about their profession. This insight and knowledge about the fallibility of our God(s), makes our ‘end’ after 28 days of wet existence either salvation or an exercise in futility, depending on whether one is an optimist or a pessimist. But that I would let you the readers to judge and decide.

To put the matter of our birth, existence, our end the meaning of it all in the right perspective, it is interesting to compare us with the human race. There are some stark differences and also some surprising similarities. To begin at the beginning, let us look at the very purpose of our existence.

The purpose of our existence is to give you an indication that you Engineers have not made any mistake in producing the concrete, which happens to be our source of being. However, since we are separated from our source at the time of our birth, we can at best give you an indication of the potential of the parent concrete. This fact is frequently not realized by the Engineers who think that we are the last word on the quality of their product, the concrete. Is it not very similar to human beings forgetting the very purpose of their existence? The sooner you realize the limited utility of the information furnished by us, the earlier you will start following the right path for success, that is to make and treat our parent, the concrete with great care and not merely to pamper us, the cubes.

The second striking similarity between the human race and us is the fact that neither you, nor we have any control on where we are born! We are supposed to be taken away from our parent concrete and given shape as cubes in a decidedly random pattern. But many Engineers would have none of this randomness. My colleagues have narrated stories of how some overzealous Engineers from the consultant wanted to sample a batch deemed to be poor by him, whereas the contractor’s Engineers would have the most correct batch sampled for producing the cubes!

It seems to me that the Engineers owe their allegiance to either the owner or the consultant or the contractor, but not to the concrete.  It is a sort of ‘eugenics’ being practiced, but instead of developing a better race (concrete), such practices only hamper progress! This simple act of giving us a pre-meditated place of birth, defeats the very purpose of our existence. 

The next aspect is the nature of our birth. Unlike you human beings, we are generally required to be created as triplets. The difference amongst the triplets is a rich source of information on the quality of the ‘labour’. Once borne as triplets, our higher Gods have mandated us to undertake our short journey together and not be separated at birth like the characters in Hindi movies. But alas, many of those who make us, are not aware of these rules made by you engineers, and we are routinely separated to meet our maker at different dates. I have met cubes, which were in singles, not knowing how and when their mates were separated. On other occasions, while we had triplets together, one was tested at 3 days, another at 7 days and the third one at 28 days. Apart from being very heartless and inconsiderate, this separation serves no useful purpose to you Engineers. Errors in making, nurturing and testing us goes undetected and our sacrifice goes in vain.

Let us now look at the life expectancy. Here again, we greatly differ from the human race. Unlike you human beings, our life expectancy is pretty low and very much determinate. More than ninety percent of my species do not survive for more than 28 days. Most of us meet our end almost on the twenty-eighth day, give or take a few hours. However, due to the insecurity of some of you engineers, some of my brothers end their journey prematurely on the 3rd or the 7th day of their life. Though no definite correlation has been established between our 3 / 7 days strength and the 28 days strength, this practice continues, giving way to some avoidable cost of our existence.

With the advances in concrete research and better quality assurance the life expectancy is slowly on the rise, with some of us now expecting to enjoy 56 and 90 days of life. Blessed are the Engineers who have the confidence in the quality of their work to be bold enough to let us live a longer life. May their numbers always grow !

If engineers and human beings made by the almighty have so many defects, can we be any different. We have many defects, which should not be there, and our only solace is the fact that all these defects are caused not by us but by you Engineers!   All these defect in some way or other render or task of providing the Engineers with useful data less reliable. Let us look at some of the congenital defects we are born with. I am fortunate to be made in a good laboratory and hence I take pride in my perfect body, a smooth finish and the inner strength. But I was saddened to meet many colleagues from the construction sites, who had different diseases. Some of these diseases, which I have seen, are described below.

Some of my friends have lot of pockmarks on their face as if they have contacted chicken pox . This shows the inadequate compaction or lack of application of mould oil.

The most common defect, which many of my friends have, are broken corner and edges . This is a direct result of someone mishandling us during the early age, when we, like you human beings are the most fragile and tender.

While lying in the curing tank, we have also come across our brothers who are not perfectly cubical in shape and some are not large enough in size! This is the result of using sub-standard moulds or not assembling the mould properly.

It is also sad to see some friends having developed leukoderma (white patches), which from their account is probably due to the fact that they were dried out prematurely and exposed to carbonation!! 

We have another complaint against you Engineers. The other day I was talking to one of my friends, who had come in for testing from a reputed site. I was telling them about the very comfortable temperature that all of us from the lab are treated to. Hearing this all of them, turned green with envy, as they all were left to suffer the chilling temperatures of winter cold. Being from the research lab I had overheard the Lab in charge saying that we are actually supposed to be resting in a very comfortable and stable temperature of 27 degrees give or take 2 degrees. But if the site Engineers cannot maintain our basic shape and size, is it not too much to expect them to maintain the curing temperature.

While lying in wait for the 28th days’ salvation, we have also been watching our colleagues being taken out for the sacrifice. Here again, we see some discrimination being practiced. While some are handled carefully and surface dried before the test, some are tested in wet condition or in dried out condition. We were unable to follow the reason for such variable treatment until our knowledgeable friend from the lab whispered that not all the lab technicians know their jobs. 

To take revenge against the Engineers for all this ill treatment, mishandling and partisan approach I called a meeting of all my friends. After a lot of brain storming we all decided to teach you Engineers a lesson.  As planned, each one of us cooperated fully in all the tests, but some decided to break early, while others resisted much longer. Thus we managed to give lot of conflicting and varying information about the strength values.

And here I am, crushed to my bones, but smug in the satisfaction of having beaten the Engineers at their own game, sure that the test results will confound them. My capillary pores are flush with the pride of my ingenuity. But I see no confusion on the face of the lab technician as he writes the test result. Soon I am scraped up from the floor and thrown out of the lab to join my friends, some totally shattered, some just cracked.

After all my martyr friends have joined us in the heap, we meet again to take stock of the situation, to judge the success of our ploy. To my horror and dismay, human beings have turned out to be too smart for us. They had the following game plan to beat our conspiracy;

One of the technicians simply recorded the strength values he wanted to be shown in the report. 

No one bothered to note the difference between the strength results of the triplets. Perhaps they were blissfully ignorant of the very purpose of testing the three cubes together and assessing the quality of the sampling and testing procedures.

Some conscientious technician did write down the true values, which showed lot of variation but this did not make any impact on the field Engineers. I heard that the test results were meant just to fill up the register to comply with ISO 9001 requirements, and not to decide the fate of the structure under consideration!

But I am sure that there are better stories to be shared. I have only gone by the limited knowledge I have based on a small sample from the vast population of the cubes! In all this crushing feeling, I have one saving grace, and that is the fact they we did our best. You Engineers are not fooling anyone but yourselves. The day of reckoning will come in future when you will spend huge amount of money for repairing and rehabilitating the inadequate construction, which we tried so hard to point out. And that may well form another industry for repair and rehabilitation of concrete. May be that is the grand design of you concrete technologists!

 

Let the shattered cubes rest in peace.