Vidya had been listening
to me with rapt attention all this while and what she felt for each type of
dog, I mean engineer, was reflected on her face without much ado. I was trying
to send some love signals to her, for obvious reasons, but it seemed she was
the one who was trying to start a lovely affair!
“So, Dipen, which category
do you belong to?” she chirped, sliding her right finger on my left cheek.
I blushed slightly and
said with a smile, “Come for their
evening walks type”.
I looked at Veena Iyer
from the corner of my eye. She seemed jealous of all the attention I was giving
to Vidya; she wanted some attention too, I thought. Aditya had a nice chance
here to go for a kill! Aditya cleared his throat as if he was ready to sing a
song.
That got Veena’s
attention and she quickly turned towards him to say, “So Aditya, you too are an
engineer, right? Can you please share with us what you really learnt in your four
years of Civil engineering?”
Aditya was so damn hoping
to strike a conversation about Bollywood or American sitcoms or music. But,
engineering? That’s so not a way to initiate a love story. Not at all! To save
Aditya the embarrassment of making a fool out of himself, for not being able to
say anything meaningful, I pitched in and continued the conversation.
I explained to the whole
group what we engineering students actually do, what our parents expect from
us, what we end up doing for the rest of our lives, etc.
-----------------
I am not the one to quit
easily. After being rejected by the girl’s father for my being an author, as I
have already told you in the beginning, I kept looking out for some other
‘dream girl’. I dug out a few more profiles from matrimonial websites and
expressed my wish to spend the rest of my life with them. Out of the five women
in whom I saw my kids’ mother, only one accepted. So, one fine day, we decided
to meet at her house. After exchanging a few pleasantries, we started the
actual conversation.
This time, I asked the
girl first “So, Vimla, what do you do?”
“I am fine,” she said
simply.
“No, no, no—” I managed
to stutter.
She repeated, “I am fine,
seriously.”
“I meant, what do you do
for a living?” I clarified.
“Oh…ok, ok… I am a commerce graduate and
currently I am working in a bank. And I want to be the branch manager in the
next 10-15 years. What do you do?” she asked, as if competing in the
questionnaire.
I was baffled at the
clarity of her thoughts and stammered “I, uh, I am an electrical engineer
working in a software company. I am working in the healthcare domain right now;
I want to be a famous author.”
She stared at me, point
blank! Must be wondering if at all I knew what I was doing with my life.
“So, how do you apply
your electrical engineering skills in a software company? You take care of the
lighting so that computers get uninterrupted power supply?”
Her questions were quite
logical. Meanwhile I, dumbstruck, simply stared at her forehead searching for
an appropriate answer. Her parents and brother were looking at me, in search of
a clear answer. I was so embarrassed at not being able to give a clear answer
about what I had done in life, what was going on in life and what I wanted to
do in life. Their eyes pierced a thousand arrows into my already weak heart and
I vowed never to go for an arranged marriage meeting again! Or maybe not go
until I become a famous author. Or maybe that will be too late in life, so I’d
just find a girl who loves me for all my confusion in life. I think I will
somehow manage to find her – classic trait of a loser!
Once I could calm my mind
a bit following that disastrous meeting, I called up a few engineer friends of
mine and asked them if they knew what they had done in their four years in
engineering college. Trust me, none of them gave me a proper answer. One guy
did MBA after engineering, so he wasted fifteen minutes of my talktime on trying
to tell me what he was doing. But even after all that waste of time and effort,
he couldn’t exactly pinpoint what he was doing. Classic example of the spiel
that MBAs throw at you!
After much wastage of
time and a lot of pressure on my brain cells, I sat down to figure out what an
engineer does, and what the society perceives him to do. This is what I came
at:
1) Electrical engineer:
What I thought of as 12th
grade student I would do in electrical engineering: My best friend’s father
used to work in MSEB (Maharashtra State Electricity Board). Whenever there was
no light in our area, we were told that Patil uncle would take care of the
problem. “Taking care” is a very vague term. But, that is what I thought an
electrical engineer did. If there is some electricity problem, an electrical
engineer takes care of it. I was not sure how, and I am still not sure how!
What I did in four years
in engineering: I constantly prayed to god that I don’t fail in any subject, copied
assignments from the toppers of my class, stayed away from electrical equipments
in labs, looked with pitiful eyes at external examiners during vivas, and hoped
that I don’t end up in any electrical company in any capacity.
What my friends think I
do: They think Dipen has always been a very intelligent person. They are
sure that he does some really hi-fi electrical experiments of the sort that
some scientists are doing in Switzerland, that large Hadron Collider something.
They are very sure that Dipen will start his own electrical equipment
manufacturing company. Very soon.
What my parents say I do
as an electrical engineer: Dipen is a very nice person with a big heart.
Whenever there is some minor electrical problem like “fuse ud gaya” or something, he never touches the switch. He insists
on calling an electrician so that even that poor guy will earn something for
that day and feed his kids and wife properly. Such a large heart my kid has!
May God give such electrical engineer kids to every parent!
What I had thought I
would do after graduation: I had thought of joining a company like Siemens,
ABB, L&T, etc. I had thought that I would come up with new ways to save
electricity and win awards for the best innovative brain in the company. I had
thought that I would put all the laws that I had learnt in those four years
into use and design electrical systems for the customers of my company.
What I actually do: Like the majority of engineers in this
country, I am now working in a software company writing programs in Java, C++.
I am in no way using even a single word of electrical engineering! All that I
do all day long is keep typing, hoping that some client in some country likes
the software that we make and gives my company thousands and lakhs of dollars
for it!
2) Mechanical engineer:
What I thought of as 12th
grade student I would do in Mechanical engineering: I have been a bike and
car freak since childhood. So, when I cleared 12th grade and was
wondering what to do next, I thought of becoming a mechanical engineer so that
I could make the fastest bike and cars in India and put India on the roadmap of
success!
What mechanical engineers
did in the four years in engineering: Prayed to god that they didn’t
fail in Engineering Drawing, Fluid Mechanics, Hydraulics, Thermodynamics; copied
assignments from the toppers of their class; sweat like pigs in boiler suits
(clarification- I used to be in boiler suit, not the pigs); stayed away from
boilers in labs, not maintaining an eye contact with external examiners during vivas;
and hoped that they cleared the aptitude test of some software company so that they
could get a chance to relax in an air-conditioned office for the rest of their
life!
What friends think a
mechanical engineer does: Ravi is the only mechanical engineer of our group.
We had thought that he would design boilers or such things in factories or make
superfast cars or trucks. But all he does now is type on keyboard in a software
company. India lost a very good mechanical engineer. India’s bad luck, we would
say!
What
parents say their Mechanical engineer kid (here, Ravi) does: Ravi is a born
mechanical engineer. Once as a kid, his cycle’s chain slid off the gear.
Normally, any kid would cry and go to a cyclewala to get the work done. But,
our cute Ravi sat down with grease in his hand and put the chain back on the
gear. Since that day we knew that our Ravi would be a mechanical engineer.
What Ravi
must have thought he would do after graduation: He must have thought of
joining a company like L&T, Tata, etc. Must have thought that he would be
one of the team members who came up with “Nano” car. Would have dreamt of
coming up with ways to use the energy in hot Lava and drive windmills to
provide electricity in poor villages in India! I am sure he still wouldn’t know
how he was going to achieve all that!
What mechanical
engineers (here, Ravi) actually do: Like the majority of
engineers in this country, he is working in a software company doing production
support for a client in Uganda. As a team leader in a software company, all he
does is take updates from his juniors and organises those updates in a proper
manner. He then gives those updates to his Project Manager, who does something
to those updates and forwards it further! In short, Ravi is more of a
“collection agent”!
3) Civil Engineer:
What I thought of as 12th
grade student I would do in Civil engineering: The roads in our
locality have never been good. The potholes were sometimes so big that instead
of filling them up, it would be better to remove the existing tar around the
pothole and make the roads flat! So, as a kid I always wanted to become a Civil
Engineer and make sure that the roads in my colony were smooth!
What civil engineers
(here, Subodh) actually did in the four years in engineering: He sprayed Relispray on the sprained back
because of the long hours spent bent over drawing boards drawing umpteen number
of sheets! Most of the civil students ended up with the same structure for they
had copied it from the same guy – the topper Nitin! Half of Subodh’s pocket
money was spent on drawing sheets and the other half on impressing a batch-mate
who he realized much later had never wanted to marry a Civil Engineer!
What their friends think they
do: There is a stinking city drain near our home that gets choked every single
time it rains season. We had thought that Subodh would have learnt the
necessary skills in his Civil Engineering that would help him come up with good
ways to clear that nallah. But, he
did nothing! God save our country from such Civil Engineers!
What Subodh’s parents say
their civil engineer son does: There is a saying in Marathi “Bala che pay Paalnyat distat” – it means
that you can foresee the future of a child in his childhood. Our son Subodh is
an excellent example of that. During Diwali, there used to be “Killa” making
competition in our society and Subodh’s Killa would always be the winner. Also,
whenever there were any plumbing issues at home, Subodh used to implement his civil
engineer’s mind and solve the problem. Since those days we knew that our Subodh
would be a civil engineer and build something. Although we are not sure what he
does in a software company as a “Buil manager”; but we care more that he gets
good money and a good wife.
What Subodh must have
thought he’d do after graduation: He must have thought of joining a good company
like L&T or Lodha group and make the tallest building in Asia! He must have
thought that he’d be one of the team members who built the Worli-Bandra Sea
Link. He must have thought that he’d somehow use all his fundas learnt in the four
years of civil engineering and use them to make the best of bridges, buildings,
museums, etc., and make his friends and parents proud!
What he actually does: He is currently working in a software company
as a “Build Manager” whose role is to take the programmes from the developers
and deploy them on the client’s machine. That’s it! All he feels good about is
that his profile has something pertaining to his degree, even if in just the
name – ‘build’.
4) Computer Engineer:
What I thought of as 12th
grade student I would do in Computer Engineering: As a kid I used to hear
news of fourteen or sixteen year-olds hacking into websites of great companies.
Since those days, I thought that I would be a computer engineer and do such
crazy things!
What computer engineers
(here, Manali) actually did in the four years in engineering: she learnt by rote various elementary programs
like “factorial”, “Fibonacci Series”, etc., understood Microprocessor, copied
assignments, broke head over submissions and shooed away boys from Mechanical,
Electrical and Civil departments (the toughest bit, I guess)!
What friends think Manali
does: Manali is such a sweet, chirpy kind of a girl. She is a very talkative
and likes to shop a lot. She has always been fond of expensive watches, gold
chains and eye-liners. But, hmm…, we never could understand what Manali did in computer
engineering. Seriously, we don’t know even now what she would end up doing
after BE Computers. She is good at cooking and looks beautiful. That is it.
What her parents say she
does as a computer engineer: Our daughter has been very intelligent ever since
childhood. So when she scored 96% in 12th grade, we had no other
option but to make her do computer engineering. My neighbour Mrs.Chadda’s son
got into Mechanical Engineering. Now he will repair scooters and trucks...Haha…
If you are not a scholar, this is what you end up doing. While Manali was
growing up, I used to give her almonds and a glass of Bournvita milk everyday.
Mrs. Chaddha is such a miser; she never got her son Bournvita or Complan. Then
this is what happens. Yeah, I know, this information has nothing to do with the
question, but still, haha…
What Manali thought she
would do after graduation: She always knew she ws good looking, and intelligent
as well. She had come to believe she’d marry some rich IIM A, B or C guy and
settle abroad. So she was prepared to work on her English accent rather than
computer engineering.
What she actually does: Currently she is married to the topper of 2009
batch of IIM Calcutta. Settled in California, she spends her time watching Desparate Housewives, Prison Break, How I Met Your Mother and other such sitcoms. Till this day, I
can’t believe that Barney Stinson (from How
I met Your Mother) aka Neil Patrick Harris is gay! Can you believe it? I
mean how on freaking earth is it possible?
So, now you know that
there is a big difference between what you think you are going to do in
engineering, what you actually do, what your parents’ perception is and what
you will end up doing at the end!
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