Chapter 4: Reasons Behind Becoming an Engineer!

Veena was jealous to begin with, this clear yet complicated description of engineers and their jobs fanned her anger a bit more and she blasted off suddenly, “So if you guys know that you are anyway going to end up doing something totally different than what you did in your four years of engineering, then why go for engineering at all? Why the hell do you waste the precious seats of those people who really want to be engineers? What is the psychology of students behind doing engineering?”

Aditya got up and dragged me to a side. I could have punched him for taking me away from the close proximity of Vidya’s arms; but then decided to jump back into my seat closer to her, deliberately! Meanwhile, he told me that while on earth, Veena was a B.Sc. graduate from Anna University who couldn’t get into an engineering college because of low marks. Her best friend Nidhi acquired a seat in an engineering college with her father’s money and married a guy from IIM Ahmedabad, ending up in the US for some fifteen years or so. And Veena spent her days taking blood samples from her clients at her Pathology Lab near T. Nagar!

I could understand Veena’s frustration and began discussing with Aditya the reasons why kids took up the engineering stream. These reasons were as much to save our own images as to pacify poor, frustrated, angry Veena and make Aditya’s case stronger to her. After a brief discussion, Aditya decided to take up this explanation to the whole team. This was a much needed break for Aditya to impress Veena.

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According to one independent study done by two Nigerians from the northern part of Uganda, one drop of semen contains 200,000 sperms and only 1 sperm fertilizes to become a baby.

They also found out that the number of graduate courses offered by most of the universities in India is 75. So, the probability of a randomly selected sperm becoming an engineer is 1/ (75*200000).

Right?

Wrong!

For in India, probability doesn’t take its normal course of action. Till a few years ago, almost every Indian wanted his/ her child to become an engineer or a doctor. If neither of these, then whatever, it didn’t matter at all!  

Now, though, times have changed.

Or have they?

Oh, by the way, these two Nigerians who were free enough to do studies on people also did a study on forty 12^th grade students and their parents from India to check their reasoning behind doing engineering. Before the study, it was widely known that kids wanted to be engineers so that they could go to outer space like our very own Kalpana Chawla or Rakesh Sharma. But, unfortunately, the results of the study were far from expected. These are the 8 broad reasons why those kids wanted to be engineers.

1)     Mrs. Chaddha’s son is now in the US, earning a whopping thirty lakhs a year. He is an electrical engineer working in a software company. Why should Mrs. Sharma not let her puttar tread the same lucrative path?

Knowingly or unknowingly the Mrs. Chaddhas, Mrs. Sharmas, Mrs. Guptas of the society have played a major role in what we kids become later in life. For example, let’s suppose some Mrs. Chaddha is blessed with a son who works in a software company and goes to the US on H1 Visa and gets settled there. Chances are very high that at some kitty party, Mrs. Chaddha will brag about the gifts or chocolates that her son gets for her every time he visits India. Mrs. Sharma, Mrs. Gupta, Mrs. Tiwari will turn into tandoori mothers and spank their kids for the rest of their lives, and would want them to become like Mrs. Chaddha’s son who gets gifts or chocolates! It wouldn’t matter to them what that Chaddha’s son really does in the US. It wouldn’t matter if he lives a donkey’s life working eighteen hours a day or waits tables or delivers pizzas! All that matters is the expensive gifts he gets, that later are ceremoniously shown at kitty parties! And strangely, no counsellors or wise elders decide the fate of Indian students as much as kitty parties do!

2)    I was good in studies and so I had no other better option, yaar!

This is one of the most snobbish of reasons possible to become an engineer. People giving such a reason are the ones who try to seek attention and crave for a “wow-you-are-just-awesome” kind of expression, all the time! Just like the caste system in India, there exists an unsaid hierarchical structure in graduation options too! Eg: computer engineers from IITs are like the Iyengers of Tamil Brahmins! – crème de la crème in the caste hierarchy!

Graduation option	Sub-type	Stream
Engineering	IITians	Computer Science
		Electrical
		Mechanical
		Civil
	Non-IITians	Computer Science
		IT
		Electronics
		Electronics and Telecommunications
		Mechanical
		Electrical
		Civil
Bsc	-
BA	-
BCom, BMS, BPharm, etc.	-

3)    Papa says that I will get a good dowry if I become an engineer.

Unfortunately, there is a section of society that prefers engineers as their sons-in-law. There is a demand for “Engineer Sons-in-law” as there is demand for tall, slim, beautiful girls as well, and hence, there are people who try to fulfil that demand by supplying “engineer sons”! They fetch far more dowry than B.A. or B.Sc. or B.com sons! This is the bloody truth in this country. It doesn’t matter to such people what college that engineer graduated from or what his grades in engineering were or how good or bad a job he has landed in after doing engineering! All that is important is the satisfaction of saying “our son-in-law is an engineer”! It’s high time that people open their eyes. It’s our generation that needs to think rationally and do what is necessary. And imagine what Aamir Khan could do to you on his show Satyamev Jayate if he came to know of your dowry earning plans!

4)    I want to be an astronaut.

Once we had a school trip to Nehru Science Center in Worli, Mumbai. Since then I was so fascinated by the stars, spaceships, planets that whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be in life, my instant answer was “Astronaut!” I am sure there must be millions of kids out there who want to be astronauts. As kids, we want to become that fascinates us temporarily. But there are extremely few people in this country who, as kids, know what to do. I salute such kids!

1)     Sudha, Prajakta, Vidya, Aparna are planning to do engineering. So I also want to be an engineer, too.

Around 30% of the 12^th grade students become engineers because their close friends choose to become engineers. This is how a typical conversation goes in a group of students who have recently taken their 12^th grade exams.

Aditi, Gayatri, Sudha, Pratibha, Jigness and Vrushali were trying to decide what to do if they get good marks in 12^th standard exams.

Aditi: Hey friends! What are you all planning to do after 12^th grade results? I am thinking of doing Mechanical engineering.

Jigness : Haha…What Aditi? Mechanical? Are you kidding me? Are you willing to spend the rest of your life greasing and oiling old cars? Haven’t you seen movies of Jackie Shroff or Govinda or Chunky Pandey busy oiling old cars just when their heroines meet them for the first time? (Aditi nods in agreement) They all were Mechanical engineers!

Gayatri: Yes Jigness, true. But Aditi, you are too good at cooking, so you should do Home Science… You make really good Kanda Poha and Tea…and do you think you will understand about all problems in engines of cars and trucks?

(Aditi became as dumbfound as an 80 year old conservative Gujarati woman given KFC Chicken Hot Wings for breakfast! Aditi felt as if all her dreams of becoming a Mechanical Engineer were shattered!)

Sudha: Engineering is definitely better than Home Science, Gayatri!

Pratibha (intercepted Sudha): And why is it so Sudha? Just because handsome guys want career-oriented engineers as their house wives? Or is it that you are too intelligent to consider others just crap???

(The truth is that Pratibha was a fat and lazy girl who didn’t want to travel in local trains in Mumbai like her elder cousins (software engineers) who travelled from Kalyan to Andheri every day, wasting five hours in travelling alone! She had always dreamt of having chubby kids, teaching them Maths, Geography and History, taking them to Karate and Kathak classes. So, when Sudha absolutely brushed aside the option of Home Science, Pratibha was indeed hurt!)

Aditi (who was now confused about what she will end up doing in life): I so damn wanted to do Mechanical Engineering till now. But now, I wonder what I am good at. (and she started crying).

Vrushali (tried to console Aditi): Arey Aditi! Please don’t cry. I am planning to do Electrical Engineering. You too do the same, ok?

Jigness:  (just as Aditi blurted out a meek “OK”):  Electrical engineering? Are you kidding me? No way! Didn’t you all watch the videos that I had shared on Facebook? The one in which a guy gets electrocuted when he tries to touch the overhead railway line?

(Aditi cried even louder as she had watched that video and didn’t want to meet the same fate!)

Sudha:  My dear Aditi, we both will do Civil Engineering. Ok?

Pratibha  (who was waiting to attack Sudha on any comment of hers): Aren’t you guys aware of my cousin’s neighbour’s death? That uncle was a civil engineer. He was standing at a construction site and suddenly a slab from the 20^th floor fell on his head and he died on the spot. May his soul rest in peace!

(Aditi concluded that she could neither do mechanical engineering, nor electrical or civil. Finally, she decided to go for computer engineering as she had a good typing speed and could easily use sites like Facebook, Youtube and others. Pratibha decided to go for Home Science and be a good mother. Sudha is now Jigness’s girlfriend and is doing what Jigness wanted to do – B.Com. Vrushali and Gayatri are now doing electrical engineering and hope to get married to handsome MBAs from IIMs!)

2)    I don’t want to do B.Com or B.Sc or B.A. So, I don’t have any other option but to do B.E.!

Have you ever been to a thali restaurant, the ones that serve unlimited food of only one type of cuisine. It could have a Rajasthani, Gujarati, Tamil Thali, etc. If you have ever had the pleasure of eating a Rajasthani Thali, you must have noticed that out of four vegetable dishes, only two are very exciting; out of those two, you end up refilling the bowl of the one that is the most delicious one. Right?

Same goes with the options for streams from which to graduate! You would have seen your senior from school struggling to get a good job after doing B.Com or B.A. Hence, two out of the very popular four options of graduation get cancelled right away. You would have also seen your B.Sc. seniors doing freelancing or working for a small firm at a low salary or running Pathology labs in your neighbourhood. So the last option that you have in front of you is to do B.E.! You will find hundreds and thousands of people who become engineers because of this reason!

3)    Papa said that I should do MBA after graduation and since most MBAs are engineers, I want to do engineering.

We Indians are firm believers in the adage “Keep the end in mind, not the means”. So, if your goal is clear, then take route A or route B or route C; just make sure that you reach your goal. This is what we follow especially when it comes to engineering. During the late ‘70s or ‘80s, the white-saree clad on-screen mothers used to distribute sweets saying “mera beta engineer ban gaya hai”. But as time passed, i.e. in current times, the same on-screen mothers are not happy declaring that their grandsons are MBAs! Now-a-days the trend is that MBA is the default degree that one should possess to get a decent job and a good life partner!

If, now, you are just an engineer, then it not only means that you were academically so weak that you couldn’t do an MBA, but also that your chances of making it big in life are quite bleak.

The following is the flawed logic that parents follow now-a-days:

1)      50% of the junta in MBA colleges are engineers. – PREMISE 1

2)      Chances of getting into MBA colleges are higher if you are an engineer. – PREMISE 2

3)      Hence become an engineer – CONCLUSION!

More often than not, parents try to make their children achieve the things that they couldn’t achieve in their young age. I am not saying that it is wrong; it’s just that this is how things work in India!

4)    Hmmmm…. No idea.

Go to the canteen of any engineering college, close your eyes and throw ten small pebbles in random directions. There are 60% chances that those pebbles will land on the heads of engineering students who had no idea why they were doing engineering. In fact, “Hmmm. No idea” was one of the primary reasons why I became an engineer. I had a good score in 12th grade and had no idea about what I wanted to do in life. So, I became an engineer. These kinds of engineering students sit in the campus placements for any company that is willing to take them in! This truth will be echoed by millions of engineers of this country! Aren’t you one of them?

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Veena’s eyes finally twinkled. This explanation made Aditya look so smart that Veena was totally impressed! They spent the next hour strolling along the beautiful garden outside our apartment! Who says middle grounds are dangerous territories!