The voice of a confused engineer!

1997. I don't remember the dates. But it was the season of results. My engineering results were out.That time engineering colleges were few and far between, espcially the good ones. I shocked myself and perhaps everyone who knew me by performing way beyond my expectation. I thought, "This is it! I will be an engineer." I never knew I was destined to be an engineer and that too from one of the best engineering colleges in India. Now I can relate to the feeling of Leonardo de Caprio (cast as Jack Dawson) in the Titanic movie, when he suddenly gets the ticket to take the maiden Titanic trip. Same was with me. The Engineering colleges were due to start their session from August and somebody gave me a ticket, that would supposedly change my life.
In fact, it did. Then and now.

Within weeks into the course, I realised that I was a square peg in a round hole. Among some heavy-weights as far as ranking in board exams and general academic record is concerned, I was at sea - trying hard to keep afloat when others were swimming comfortably.
And then I met these wonderful professors. Some were bald headed. Some wore thick glasses and tried to give an impression that they were very knowledgable. One professor spoke so softly that it seemed he is in his courtship days and whispering to his wife. Some shouted so much that it seemed they were football coaches training players on field. These and many more such talented teachers made sure that the sea I landed on is turbulent. This might help them can identify the great swimmers. If one or two gulp a few gallons of saline water or even drown, it doesn't matter to them. So, what, if, as student, they were not great, either. When you are at the other side of the table, you view the world completely differently.

The pain grew with passing day. I can't jump off, can't run away. The ship left the shore...if I jump off, I'll land nowhere. Till now, never in my life have I felt so out-of-place - even in the lucky trip in business class or in the Cranfield environment.
Things grew from bad to worse with the progress of the course (semesters). Is it co-incidence that the pregnancy is counted in a similar format (trimesters)? With each passing trimester, the pain increases, but the hope that the end of the tunnel is near and the result is sweet, keeps the would-be mom smiling. Same was with me. The only motivation that kept me alive was the degree at the end of the course.
My specialisation was in Electrical Engineering. Though electric circuits did not give me shocks, the course made a habit of giving me shocks in the form of the assignments and obviously the marksheets.
Sometimes all things happening around us seem to be a big prank and a royal joke, however painful and torturing they may be. These moments have occurred to me innumerable times while in college. The otherwise large college campus, with tall green trees and the heritage building with an even heritage electrical machines lab (more of a electrical machines museum than a machines lab!) seemed like prison to me. I was just looking forward to the last day in college. The semesters and mid-semesters began to haunt me every 3 months or rather, each quarter, in today's terms. Sales people have a target to achieve each quarter. In college days, it seemed, I was targeted each quarter!

Weeks passed, so did months and semesters. There were fun and banter. But then there were also exams and mark sheets. Now when I look at those marksheets, I feel pity that so much toil and tears resulted in 1 sheet of paper. Such a shit!

After 10 years of passing my engineering college, the names of subjects in the marksheets ring no bell in me, leave alone excite me. My engineering learning skills come handy only when I draw a road map or ask my carpenter to make some furniture for our home and may be while making some connection between TV-DVD, TV-Home theatre etc.The world and people may think I am an engineer. I may think otherwise. There is a point upto which one can pretend to be someone, who he/she is not. I have stopped pretending. But the confusion remains - "am I or am I not an engineer?" Shall I believe the marksheets and what people say or shall I believe my inner conscious?

The voice of a confused engineer refuses to die!

The serpentine lane!

The view from my bedroom is very soothing during the day. There is this serpentine lane which sort-of bumps into my house before taking a sharp 90-degree right turn.

From morning the road becomes busy - people go to office, horns of school buses to pick up children, the garbage-van blowing his horn, some pet-lovers taking their dogs out for a morning walk, the maids, the milkman with the jingling sound of the aluminium cans, the newspaper man distributing newspapers - throwing newspapers upto the second and third floor from the road with spot-on accuracy...the road is so full of activity!

At night, my beautiful lane becomes so grim and sombre. From evening itself the lane begins to show changes in its activity and complexion. Right in front of my bedroom window a halogen light glows brightly. A few metres away, another one. And then another. The lanes is bathed in golden light from evening to the wee hours of the night. When its midnight, there is hardly any passer-by. Couple of stray dogs bark either for no reason or by the occassional sight of some passer-by. Sometimes the typical sound of auto-rickshaws or some two or four wheelers from some far-away distances can be heard. The world is asleep. I look behind. My daughter is in deep sleep after playing and running around the whole day. She is one and a half years old. My wife is also asleep, tired from her hectic office schedule.

But there is something inexplicable that is keeping me awake. It may be the yearning to talk to myself and be alone with myself. It may be the constant flow of bitter-sweet memories of the past that keeps flowing in, especially when I see this silent lane. It may be the thoughts of a loner, thoughts of a confused soul, thoughts that are too close to my heart, which I cant share with anyone on this planet, because no one will understand them. It may be my tears that come out when everybody around is asleep. It may be renewing my friendship with the stars and the moon, that we all hardly pay attention to in the era of sky-scrappers and neon lights.It may be my endevour to dive deep into myself and try to discover more of myself.

The clock ticks past midnight. I say to myself that I have to go to bed now. Tomorrow I have to go to office. Another day awaits for me. That will be followed by another night. Same like that of tonight. Let me keep some thoughts for tomorrow night as well. My eye lids become heavy. Though I would much rather sit by the window and stare almost aimlessly outside, I ultimately had to call it a day.

I shut down my laptop.