Chapter 2: Types Of Engineers

Right after we finished the first chapter, the adorable Vidya who seemed to have stolen all my attention, told me how she was totally bowled over by my writing and narration skills.

She had been sitting at a distance till now, quietly taking down notes of what I was saying. She began twirling her hair, and shifted slightly closer, making my already dead-in-hell heart jump with excitement. I looked at her and it seemed to me she wanted to ask me something. I encouraged her with a smile and she asked me with a naughty expression and melodious voice, “Dipu, could you please tell me more about yourself? I wanna know you better. What kind of an engineer are you?”

“Oh my dog!” I said out of excitement!

She giggled slightly, which made her full lips seem more luscious than ever and my heart more out of control than ever.

“Haha…I think you wanted to say ‘Oh my God’. Isn’t it, Dipu?” she continued flirting.

“Aaaa…I… No. Actually, engineers are like dogs. Let me explain what I meant in detail with the Dog Theory.”

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From what I have understood about life, there are four ways to gain knowledge or reach the stage of enlightenment in life:

1)     Watch the contemporary Hindi news channels. They provide entertainment, entertainment and entertainment! And yes, of course, the actual news also sometimes. I hope you wouldn’t disagree with me.

2)     Turn on some spiritual channels and listen to eminent babas preach about life. You will soon realise what those babas say after they get down from their BMWs and Mercs is true. You will soon lose attraction towards all the materialistic things in life; send a demand draft with a figure equivalent to all your life’s savings to the baba, and soon even sell off your TV and wonder where to watch the next episode of preaching!

3)     Read the ancient scriptures like the Vedas, Upanishads, etc., either in Sanskrit if you are so intelligent or some incompetent/ biased translation for the same. I must not dare to mock this way of gaining knowledge, at least the original texts!

4)     Get an engineering student with at least 15 ATKTs fully drunk. He will soon puke out everything that went in, even his kidneys and liver that have been inside him ever since he opened his eyes. And at the end of this puking ordeal, he will sermonise you on why one should or shouldn’t do engineering!

I personally feel that the last approach is the best way to gain instant knowledge. I know a friend who had 21 ATKTs in his four years of engineering. Now for those uneventful souls who have not been in touch with any engineer enough to know what ATKTs are, it’s short for “allowed to keep term”. In short, those students who cannot manage to clear all the subjects in one go, have this as a saving grace to allow them to take exams in the next semester.

Once upon a time, I called him up and invited him over to my place for some ‘relaxation’.  He gladly obliged as the Vodka was on me. I didn’t mind that expense because I knew once he got drunk, he’d start narrating essential pearls of wisdom which I could take down and sell later.

He landed at my place on time, and was eager to start the drinking relaxation. In a bid to outdo each other in erring-do, I dared him to try 180 ml of Vodka in just one shot! Against my expectations and conforming to my secret wish, he did so. Not that I wanted to take advantage of his drunken state; I am not that type. But in flat three minutes, he reached the state where I was sure he would impart wisdom to me.

I prodded by saying to him, “Engineering was such a waste of time, yaar” and waited for him to say something spectacular.

“I want to divorce Kim Kardashian and be friends with Justin Batliwala,” was all that came out of his half-drunken, half open mouth. That made no sense at all. But I knew it was the beginning of some wisdom-outburst and I waited further. He took a deep breath and said, “All engineers are bloody dogs and zshshsh.. fshshs .. eee. ssshhh” and dozed off!

The last few words he managed to utter did not make an ounce of sense even after applying derivatives, triple integration and Ohm’s law of resistance. I went through his last sentence again and again and finally reached a state of authors’ nirvana when I narrowed down to just five words: “All engineers are bloody dogs!” I wrote those words on a piece of paper and stared at them to gather more insight from those words. Without realising, lost in my thoughts and urge to know what he had meant, I began drawing sketches of a few dogs – Pomeranian, Bulldog, Doberman, German Shephard, etc., and started visualizing the bigger picture for this chapter.

With my friend in deep Vodka slumber, I went to Khadakpada Circle, a place near my home well-known for the many stray dogs of varied variety, whiling away their time just barking at each other, impressing bitches (literally), eating Parle-G biscuits thrown to them by old couples, and smelling each others’ asses.

Not wanting to go home disappointed, I stayed there for another couple of hours observing the dogs and bitches! Out of around twenty-five dogs, I could figure out eight patterns or types of dogs:

1)     A kennel of dogs was barking for no reason. They just seemed to enjoy the competition “who did the longest hoooooo?”

2)     One old dog didn’t care about small kids throwing stones at him and just lay under the roof of a closed shop with one eye open. Sometimes when he used to get pissed off, he used to open his eyes and go “grrr…”.

3)     There were also some fancy bitches that had come for their evening walks with their filthy rich masters.

4)      Three old dogs lay under a closed shop and kept looking at each other once in a while. It made me think they were playing the game “who keeps eyes closed for the longest time” and opened their eyes time and again to check if anyone was cheating.

5)     There were two dogs that were looking at an old uncle, expecting him to throw something other than Parle-G biscuits. Their desperate wish to change their menu was dropping with their saliva from the lolling tongues and sparked in their gaze.

6)     One dog seemed totally clueless; he kept looking at the sky with his tongue wagging to the left side.

7)     There was one dog that was very weak and wanted to cross the road. Every time he tried to move ahead, my heart leapt with the thought that it’d die under a truck or something! But he cheated death every single time. And finally, after ten long minutes of walking two steps ahead and four steps back, he did cross the road.

8)     Just as I was about to leave, a black Labrador dressed in a sparkling white t-shirt stepped out of an S-class Mercedes. The few bitches who were barking at each other for no reason whatsoever stopped arguing and turned around to check him out. A few stray dogs circled the new arrival wondering what was so special about it!

After having spent a good two hours observing dogs, I went home and started correlating my friend’s words with my observations!

Eureka! My genius friend had not disappointed me in my theory; he indeed had given me pearls of wisdom. And my observations mixed with his wisdom have brought me to conclude that in all, engineering students can be categorised into eight types:

1)     Barking-for-no-reason type: These kinds of engineers want to become engineers just because they feel that they are superior to the people doing B.A. /B.Sc./ B.Com., etc. Ask them about some real life problem related to their branch of engineering and they will beat about the bush. What you will get in return would be some shit depending on your body language. If you show that you do know something about the solution but want some more information, then they would try to change the topic. If you convey that you don’t know about their stream of engineering, they will explain you in such great detail that you will get floored by their ‘knowledge’. These kinds of engineers normally join the Marketing or Sales department of any company that is willing to take the risk of absorbing them after their graduation. These engineers, because of their awesome soft skills, easily impress nice chicks and make fun of the other types of engineers!

2)    Don’t care type:  These engineers are already aware of what they are going to inherit from their father. They understand that their “market value” will be better if they do engineering. They don’t really care about the Kirchoff’s law or any other as they know that they are going to work hard on their father’s earning alone. They would rather join their father’s business or start their own business with the hefty dowry that they would receive as an engineer! All they care about is the presence of beautiful girls in the college so that they can flirt with them. They are the ones who are mostly found outside principal’s cabin; they are the ones who swear to their hearts’ content during annual festivals; they come drunk to the annual festivals and are among the first ones to start the “Train Chains”!

3)    Come for their evening walks type: These kinds of engineers normally score between 60 to 65%. They do engineering because their parents want them to or because their parents couldn’t become engineers themselves and hence want to accomplish their dreams via their kids. These engineers are the most suitable for jobs like production support in software companies! They will do anything; it’s just that they don’t want to work really hard. They come to college for fun and to meet their small group of friends. They normally sit on the 4^th or 5^th row in class and are sometimes attentive to what is being taught. These kinds of engineers are the “harmless” types, i.e. they don’t enjoy at the cost of others. They don’t make fun of others and keep cracking jokes within their own group.

4)     Who keeps eyes closed for the longest time type: These engineers bunk classes the most and yet show their potential when needed! Whenever they enter a lecture, the teacher looks at them from top to bottom to begin with, and from their entering to taking their seats, wondering if they were sitting in the right lecture. These engineers are the real studs; they don’t work hard and yet score above 60% all the time. They know what they want in life. Engineering is just a means to achieve an end. Their ultimate goals are something totally different in life. They believe in the adage “slow and steady wins the race”.

5)     Want a change in life type: These engineers are like rebels! They are not satisfied with anything in college. They crib about canteen food, their gang of friends, and the crowd of girls in the college, about infrastructure in college and the teaching faculty. Their frustration of being at the wrong place makes them prepare for MBA/MS entrance exams like a dog running after a luxury car and they crack those exams to get out of the rut! These are the engineers who know the span of their wings and hence never settle for less.

6)     Totally clueless type: They go to college everyday with the hope that there would be some ominous day when they would realize why they took up engineering. These kinds usually take up Electrical/ Mechanical/ Civil engineering, land up in a job in some Software Company, work at the client’s base in Haryana and crib about everything – right from dirty water in bore-wells to political situations in Tamil Nadu. But, the moment you try to strike a meaningful conversation, they will again be clueless, just as they were in their engineering days!

7)     Will somehow cross the road type: These types get at least 10 ATKTs during their four years at college. These are the ones who turn out to be different in life. They are the ones who can handle the real life pressures in future because they have gathered enough courage in life by facing so many ATKTs. These are those who at some point have also had to toss a coin to decide whether to attend the Mechanics 2 ATKT or Maths 3 ATKT paper because it fell on the same day, same time! They are at times looked down upon as the “gaya-guzaraa” types by others. But these engineers usually shock the world when they get the most beautiful of wives and have awesome jobs while their batch-mates still struggle. These engineers are the happiest of the lot because they don’t expect much from life. It’s like begging for a rupee and ending up with a ten rupee note! They value friendship; they know how to differentiate the good people from the selfish people.

8)     Filthy rich type: These kinds of engineers are normally the ones who come to college in their BMWs or Mercs. Their lives are like Bollywood movies; they enter college with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Student of the Year running in their minds, making them feel that the moment they step onto the basketball court in the college, everyone will just turn around to notice them. Girls would freak out and go gaga over them and would have cat-fights over who saw that guy first! These engineers normally gets loads of ATKTs; mainly because they are never serious about studies or don’t have the necessary aptitude to become engineers. They do engineering just because their parents want them to. These engineers are rarely found in an engineering college.

I showed this list to my friend after he woke up. He stared at it and then looked at me with heavy eyes. I was anticipating another round of gyaan from him; but all I managed to get was a snort and snores that followed. I guess 180 ml of vodka could help me write only one chapter!