Life of an Average Indian Male- Part 2

*Continued From Previous Post


So Raj finally begins his much awaited college life- he longs to enter the door into freedom. Now he will be free to do what he wishes. Now he can party whole night long without any restrictions. Now he is free to experiment with smoking, drinking and sex. Now he can freely bunk classes without fear of punishment. And what about studying? That too, subjects on Instrumentation engineering? No ways!

For starters, he isn’t really sure why he is studying instrumentation engineering in the first place. He isn’t even sure why he is in an engineering college. It’s just that most of his friends have chosen engineering, and he just decided to go along with the flow. Raj doesn’t care. He’s entered college, now he is going to have fun and meet beautiful girls. He’s a bit apprehensive about ragging however. Nevertheless he shifts into the hostel and eagerly waits for the first day to begin.

First day in college- Raj finds out where his classes are held and begins the day on a good note. Some of his school friends are in the same class with him. But there comes the first shock- In a class of 60 students, there are just 5 females. That too, none of them were worth giving a second glance. Whatever happened to the hot girls shown in colleges in the Hindi movies? ‘Hindi movies are all crap,’ he says to himself dejectedly. So he is going to spend 4 years like this? Worse, the teachers are horrible, and he falls into a slumber 30 minutes into the first class itself. He has basic electrical engineering, mathematics, physics, chemistry, English and basic Mechanics in the first semester. Mathematics is all right, but he hates all other subjects from the start. ‘Come on.’ He says to his classmates. ‘Why on earth should an Instrumentation engineer study mechanics and chemistry? And what use is engineering drawing to us? How can such funny symbols help us in any way?’

‘Dude, all engineering students need to do them. Not just you,’ his friend remarks. Raj is disappointed. But he doesn’t know yet that things are going to get worse.

The seniors drop in for a casual visit. Except it isn’t that casual after all. The ragging period stretches on for a month, and Raj is forced to do all sort of nefarious things which he never thought he would have to. Add to that the dull, insipid classes and the rotten hostel food. On top of it, his room is hot as hell, without any ventilation, and there isn’t even a proper playground nearby. ‘What mess have I gotten myself into?’, he exclaims. ‘Is college life supposed to be like this?’ Before long, Raj is fed up. Thankfully, the ragging period gets over after a month. But the vapid classes continue. Raj fails to find any good looking girl in the entire campus. The few decent ones are already committed. And thanks to the 90:10 ratio[male:female], he gives up trying his luck.

‘It’s as if all guys want to get into engineering and all good looking girls want to stay far away from engineering colleges. It’s so unfair’, he moans. Frustrated beyond all control, and fed up of staying single his entire life Raj takes up smoking and drinking in order to get rid of his depression. Soon, he finds both activities quite pleasurable and becomes hooked. He spends the lazy nights smoking on the terrace of his hostel floor and watching pornographic movies on his laptop. Life is finally becoming good. Though the classes and exams remain as intolerable as always.

First sem results are declared and Raj gets a measly 6.34, somehow managing to pass in all subjects[thanks to his newly acquired cheating prowess]. That result shocks his parents, who till now believed that their child was one of the best. Raj also isn’t amused. How come one of the best students in school end up like this? Hadn’t he prepared hard to clear the engineering entrance exams? Then why does he dislike his subjects so much now? Why is it that Thevenin and Norton go over his head? How come power systems and fluid dynamics make him feel suffocated? ‘This isn’t what I wanted to do,’ he remarks finally one fine day, after completing 3 miserable years in his college and scoring a series of 6 points GPA. But engineering is that best career choice there is. All engineers are hard working students and the ones who deserve good jobs.

Disillusioned and disheartened, Raj simply bears the pain. One day, he sees that few of his classmates were taking Computer coaching classes. On further inquiring, he comes to know that they are learning C++, Java, Oracle, Dot Net, and other programming languages. ‘What for? Why does an Instrumentation Engineer needs to learn them?,’ Raj wonders. Then he realizes. Post recession, the ‘Placements’ situation in college has been dismal to say the least. And the few companies which are coming are all from Information Technology[I.T.]. So acquainting oneself with programming skills will surely help one to get an I.T. job. ‘Raj buddy, you should know that people get into engineering just for jobs and nothing else. There is no scope for interest or passion here. We are all misfits here, but we need jobs, which only engineering colleges can provide.’ Initially Raj is a bit skeptical about this. ‘Is that really so? Can only engineering graduates get good jobs? What about people who are interested in History, or Painting, dance, Commerce, Architecture, Microbiology, etc? Is there no scope for them?’ But slowly Raj is convinced that he too must try to get into an I.T. job. He joins the tuition classes along with his friends and tries to learn C, C++ ,DBMS, Java and J2EE. Most of the things go above his head. Not long after, he starts hating the tuition classes as well. But since the placement season is approaching, he goes along with it.

Fast forward to the Fourth Year- the reason why every meritorious student joins an engineering course- the Placements Season arrives. As feared, no core company comes to campus. It’s just a few I.T. companies and that too lowly ranked ones. After struggling through the aptitude tests and interviews, Raj somehow manages to get into an ‘Unheard of’ I.T company. What surprises him is that whatever he had learned during the past 3 years[including the computer classes] was completely laid to waste. The job was related to Software testing, which he hadn’t even heard of earlier. There was just one question ringing in Raj’s head, as he attended the college convocation programme to get his engineering degree- ‘Why on earth did I waste 4 years of my life doing something which I never liked, when I never needed that knowledge to get a job(that too something totally different from my domain)?’

At the moment, Raj did not have the answer. He prepared himself to join the workplace, which was in another city.

*To Be Continued