For I am an Engineer

FOR, I AM AN ENGINEER

On the 14th of June ’13, at about 8.02 PM, I saw a status update in Facebook. It was from my friend who sounded relived because he had become an engineer. The adrenaline pumped in and I began fidgeting with my fingers on the keyboard trying to type out ‘www.annauniv.edu’, which would usually have been a cake walk. It looked like a herculean task, trying to locate the details regarding the results in the simple, yet confusingly murky Anna University website. I could not find it and had to send a message to my friend about where the result was published. He directed me to another website. There, I was typing out my numbers, trying to be extra sure because the last thing I would have wanted was to see somebody else’s result and get ‘trolled’.

Five boxes, on the right most in the table bore the words ‘PASS’ and then I let out a huge sigh. It was 8.04 when I realized for the first time with assurance that I was a Mechanical engineer. I had my hands up and shouted out loud, ‘ha I am an engineer’ and my father who was reading a book on the bed, sat up startled. He realized what I was saying in a moment and looked at the screen. Excitedly he ran to tell my mother about this and then the rest was emotion. Parents, who never became engineers, who wanted their son to become an engineer, had tears to show. My mother was literally sobbing and my dad was trying to hide his tears. It took some time to sink in that I had become an engineer and then I did what most people do, update a status. It was 8.07 when I reached out to the world as a Mechanical engineer.  

When the cursory ‘likes’ began to pour in, I pondered about the last 4 years. My father and mother were decent enough to give me some personal space at that moment or maybe it just happened. I sat alone in the room with my favorite track, Divernire playing aloud. The 4 years really did not seem to have moved in a blur. When people often confront me saying ‘4 years was like a jiffy’, I get really wild. Only the one who experienced the 4 hard strenuous utterly meaningless years would have known what I was. What did I really become? An engineer? No way. I still have no idea how an induction motor starts. It did not take many more moments to realize that all I had done is to have gone through the usual and well treaded paths. The wilderness then, which looked scary, looked inviting. In retrospect, I would have taken the path, rather, found a path through the wilderness rather than to have gone through this known path. All I have ended up with is being just another engineer in 350,000 engineers in India for the year alone. 1/350,000 is an exorbitantly high odds which even Thomas Alva Edison would not have faced.

In a world with a plethora of opportunities, I was forced to take up engineering and now I stand as an utter failure to the course. Failure does not necessarily mean to have literally failed. To not to have developed the passion for the subject even after 4 years of studies depicts two possibilities. Either the subject was not presented well or I did not want to develop passion. I would call this a paradox. It is a vicious circle wherein both the components point at the other one. If I get into the rhetoric topic of India Educational system, I would even have to attend phone calls from respected Mr. Kapil Sibal which I do not want to. 

There is one more lifeline, one where I guess most people get to the shores with. It is the fact that engineers are merely wanted not for their knowledge on the subject, but the way they think, the way they have been trained to think when problems arise. May be the meaningless and utterly dumb idea of solving problems during the 8 semesters did have a concept behind it. With no job and such a dull attitude (they call it so, I don’t) I am one among the myriad of youth in this country seeking a respectable employment, 

FOR I AM AN ENGINEER.