The Unbecoming Engineers

A lot of you would have already read this one, it's appeared in this month's Campus Rumpus, still, i was asked to post it here, and I guess it does make sense for ppl other than the few CR-reading IITD junta, so am puttin it here. Will like you reviews, though am sorry for the length..:)

THE UNBECOMING ENGINEERS

Before I proceed to say anything, I request you all to kindly excuse any content that maybe regarded as capricious jargon or insensitive ballyhoo on my part, or merely a dangerous figment of my over imaginative faculties. I do not seek to pronounce personal, opinionated judgments on the state of worldly affairs that have come under the purview of the narrow range of my vision, both physical and mental. All I endeavour is to relate a certain incident that has rudely shake me up a bit from my perpetual state of utopian bliss and self-satisfaction, and the chaos that it has temporarily triggered off in my sparingly used mind. I also intend to use this rustiness of my mental factory caused by the almost complete absence of regular exercise and over-exposure to junk, as an excuse to cover-up any absurd comprehensions, preposterous misconceptions and wrongful analysis that I might have made and you shall be reading about (hopefully) in the following paragraphs. I have also dared to use the pronoun “we” more than a few times to stand for the entire IITian community while speaking of certain actions and sentiments I find myself sharing with almost everyone I know here. I urge the sensitive, intellectual population of the IIT Front Benchers’ Association to kindly overlook my outrageous attempt at humour and avoid filing a defamation suit on the charges of “malice aforethought” against me for the liberties I have carelessly taken. And now if we are done with the disclaimer, let me move on to the purpose for which I have decided to waste two rupees worth of my pen’s ink, a couple of A4 sheets and 200 calories worth of my energy today.

Well, I for one am a very peacefully content, blissfully ignorant and lazy individual who, like a substantial chunk of the IIT population, is extremely happy and content doing nothing at all and yet being perceived by the whole world as doing something respectable (?) simply by the virtue of having an IITian tag.

Yeah, this tag- this stamp of being an IIT student- that everyone gets by default the day he/she manages to crack the all-important, sleep-devouring exam, the IITJEE- and enter one of these high profile institutions. No wonder so many students work and pray so hard for this stamp, so many dreams are hinged on a single result, because once we’re in, we can really afford to be mentally out!!!

It is strangely funny (and had I been normal, worrisome too) the manner and the speed with which we all get transformed from serious, sincere, diligent, highly ‘academic’ children to a bunch of casual, perpetually cribbing but still “happy” bunch of individuals, unaffected by most serious and academic issues, esp. subjects, lectures and profs. I sometimes wonder if the air of IIT causes some genetic mutation in the residents’ bodies such that they metamorphose into creatures of a strangely violent, occasionally brilliant, seemingly busy, perpetually somnolent nocturnal species.

Anyways, I do not intend to dwell any further on this, firstly because I myself am a proud member of this species, secondly because like most of us, I do not really care, and lastly because this careless detour of thought is not what has woken me up from my reverie, but something else which I shall hopefully soon tell you about.

See, I’ve always subscribed to the view that it’s not really important what you do, but what matters is what others think you’re doing. I’ve seen this thumb rule work reasonably well within the IIT system too. If people believe that you’ve put in sincere efforts discharging your responsibilities at some particular post in your hostel or the BRCA etc., you stand to earn a lot of extra goodwill (and trust me, a lot of votes the next political season too), even if you’d actually whiled away the year distributing your work among others as much as possible, organizing meetings just to fix the next meeting date, or shrugging off responsibilities with a most serious face and my favourite clichéd of “I’ve got responsibilities!” in front of your superiors, but still managing to make an appearance at all places and times when it counts. Similarly, one could help one’s own grades by a simple trick: Occasionally, take a little pain to wake up from the lecture time nap five minutes before the class ends (it’ll be cruel, foolish and mortally impossible in most of the cases to try and wake up the whole lecture) and let a few words and terms enter your ears (it may be advisable to employ the alarm on your cell phone, since alertness in those five minutes is crucial). Then crowd your prof. at the end of the class (yes, along with the revered front benchers) with some doubt or question. Ask anything whatsoever, but make sure the discussion lasts at least five minutes, and the prof leaves with an impression that at least someone was attentive in his class and he must remember your face (if possible, name and entry number too). A one-to-one meeting with the prof in his room later works thousand times better, but you’ve to be really brave and slightly more alert for the longer rendezvous…. Clever, huh?

So coming back to the point, deceptive looks can be really handy. Especially so for an IITian outside IIT. You may be a nine point someone, or a five point no one, but to the average laymen you’re the descendant of some highly brilliant species- the license of this being your Institute I-Card, or B.Tech. Degree, as maybe the case. Sooner or later, we all start enjoying our stay in this ego-boosting castle of illusion and believing in the falsehood of the superiority claims.

Normally whenever I happen to meet, or am introduced to, an over enthusiastic neighbour at home, an inquisitive relative, an aware sexagenarian, or a semi-intelligent professional, I’m used to zealous congratulations, gratuitous advice and good lucks, and a general expression of how happy they’re since I have the privilege of studying in IIT. Privilege it certainly is, studying…err…well…

Anyway, the funnier situations are those when my acquaintance is a part of the intellectually deprived, informatively challenged junta who do not really know what IIT stands for. And I happily oblige with a flattering explanation of the world-renowned, India’s finest premiers of technical education. I must confess the awestruck expressions of my audience are pretty enjoyable, but trust me, it really makes you angry when someone confuses IIT with ITI!!!

The incident (finally!!!) that I’ve been talking about since the start of this article happened a few days back-when I was home for my mid-semester break. One of my father’s old-time friend and colleague had come to our house for lunch with his family. After the usual exchange of greeting, introductions and the first round of tea and snacks, everyone settled for a round of conversations and discussions. Uncle asked me what I was doing, and I casually replied I was studying, expecting the usual.

“What are you studying child?” his wife suddenly took over.

“Well, auntie, I’m studying at IIT Delhi” I retorted confidently.

“That’s fine, but what do you study?” She repeated her question. I looked at her calm face and half-laughed to myself thinking here comes another who doesn’t even know what is taught at IITs.

Outwardly though, I just said, “I’m doing my B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering. First Year.”

“Good, so that means you’ll soon be an engineer. Infact you already are 20% of one.”

“Uh…well…” I hardly knew how to respond.

But she continued. “So, who is an engineer? I mean. What all does an engineer do? What exactly are you going to do as your job all your life?”

Now the last one was a real googly. What was an engineer afterall? Am I really 0.2 of what I’m supposed to be in another three years when I have a degree in my hand? Certainly, doing four times of what I really do right now is not the supposed job of an engineer.

I realized all eyes were on me. I was expected to give a brilliant reply, befitting my somewhat respectable status, but in reality, I was at a total loss of words, and thoughts. My mind had blanked out, and it was sheer luck that saved me from the mess, because almost miraculously my phone rang at that very instant and I got a little reprieve. Plus my mom almost simultaneously announced lunch and invited everyone to the dining table, and thus, somehow, the topic was forgotten for the day.

They left in a couple of hours, but the question didn’t really leave me. The storm hadn’t really abated, at least not the one within, because suddenly a single, seemingly innocuous stone of reality had shattered the castle of my illusions, and five words…are we really becoming engineers?

One of the first things I did once they left was check out the dictionary for the meaning of the word “engineer”, and this is what Oxford had to offer:

A skilled professional who applies scientific knowledge for the planning, design, manufacture and utilization of a technological enterprise.

Heavy words indeed, but is that really the direction in which my steps are heading? Well, I certainly plan enterprises, but technological??????? I know how to utilize my time in the lectures to cover up for lost sleep, and to finish practical files and assignments, and the only thing that comes to my mind at the mention of manufacture is a MEL120 class, and well…that makes me yawn immediately. Ahem, so…it that enough? Are we really gonna become skilled professionals by practising our routine skills of bunking indefinite number of classes for the sake of making up for those night hours lost in gossip, attending lectures only to sleep, avoid attendance Fs I case of stricter profs and oblige friends with proxies, discussing Nescafe coffees, sassi paranthas, wind–t crowd, girls, guys and profs all day long, and somehow scraping through the years? I don’t think any of us actually learns anything on the curriculum- except for how to be experts at fraud thanks to the practicals.

Our knowledge v/s time graph seems to follow exponential patterns; a steep rise4 from zero to a certain maxima within a few hours before the exam, and a rapid exponential decay that begins the instant we step out of the exam hall, such that it’s entirely possible to forget the entire course content before the first minor by the time minor 2 arrives- a fact which can be proven by asking yourself how many course titles of your courses last semester do you genuinely remember.

I recently asked one of my seniors at the fag end of his third year if he really feels like 75% of an engineer. He was initially aghast, but later responded, “Only if I were to get a degree in redundancy and not electrical engineering, yeah I’m 75% there…”

We both giggled, but later I though, how true. And if this was the situation at IIT-supposedly the best of the lot-what about the thousands of other engineering colleges across the country? Do we really do what we are supposed to be doing, or is it sufficient that a lot of people think we are? I don’t really know. I would have pondered more and worried myself to death over the future of my beloved country, but the fatigue of my suddenly over -exercised mind now threatens to drown me and I know very soon I’m going to re-collapse to my utopian world of egocentricity.

Until then, just a single thought rankles my brain:

Am I really becoming an engineer, or an unbecoming one?