Happy Engineer's Day

Source: picturesof.net

Happy Engineer's Day to one and all - especially engineers. I especially congratulate myself for being one!!! I think all engineers are proud to be one even if they are jobless / mindless or plain dumb or for that matter successful / smart / building bridges or chips or bulbs or generating power. Well - engineers are a proud breed. Proud  not because of the education or the degree or the job, proud because they went through the process of completing their engineering studies and finally getting a degree.

Well, there are 2 types of engineers. Now you would think - only 2??? Now - its not what you are thinking. I am not talking about the computers / electronics / mechanical / civil / instrumentation or even the environmental engineer. To be clear, once again, there are 2 types of engineers - first - those who went to an engineering college and lived at their homes with their mummyji and papaji and siblings!!!! And second - there are those engineers who went to an engineering college and lived in a hostel!!!! Aahhhh!!!! Now thats the breed that I am talking about. And truely, those are the engineers we are really proud of being.

Source: www.geocnc.com

Well, the hostel life in an engineering college is starkly different. I for one, did not have 5 star hostels. I remember, in our first year, we had a tin roof. Scarcity of water. Horrible food. Slow moving fans. Queues outside the washroom. We addressed our seniors as mam / sir. Till this day, if I happen to meet one of my long lost seniors, the mam / sir part remains. Its become a part of their name. I remember the first semester especially when the freshers HAD to wear salwaar kameez ONLY with dupatta and oil their hair and make a braid or tie it up. I remember the engineering drawing sessions and how I had mastered the Glass Tracing technique and submitted sheets and sheets of submissions. I also remember burning my mattress in this process (GT was forbidden !!!). I remember compering the engineer's day in college and being the food coordinator and ahem!!! going for tasting too. At the end of it all, my feet had hurt like hell. We had watched 6 AM  movies in nondescript movie halls where tickets were cheap and to save money we would walk it up. The new year celebrations were fantastic. Oh, how we used to hog on food. We would have put anybody to shame. Maggie was a blessing in disguise. It was a saviour on many a night especially when you had discovered cockroaches in your mess ka khana. The freshers party and the farewell party - how all the year students would be busy in atleast one of them. And the exams!!!! We could finish books in one day. 37 was the magical figure for us ( 3 marks grace!!!). 

Had mastered the art of scanning. The Xerox wala being a revered and reliable friend for notes and books. No - many times we did not buy books, we just got them photocopied. It was easy to distribute chapters among 2-3 people and study them. Its difficult to tear up books - chapter wise!!!!! Engineers per say, study only during the prep leave and the best of them study only during the exams. And once the exams are over, a movie it is - to unwind and prepare for the next exam day after tomorrow :-). Engineers are an odd lot. There are thousands and thousands of things which are coming to my mind right now. In this case, seriously, the journey is the destination.

Source: http://www.wittysparks.com

And so, I believe Chetan Bhagat did not write something sacred when he wrote 5 POINT SOMEONE!!! Apart from the story line - student falling for the prof's daughter - everything is known and accepted - amongst the engineers. And that is also why, I don't think, that 3 IDIOTS is great movie. Its an okay movie with almost no novelty thrown in. And then again, I don't quite get the 'shor' surrounding the Chetan Bhagat - 3 IDIOTS movie saga. Sure the book and the movie must be a great read and watch for a lot of people, but again, there is no point fighting over the copywrite infridgements because that is common to almost all the engineering colleges which have a hostel facility.

Anyways, I had been in a fix since quite sometime about the topics to blog about. Checked in on twitter and found my topic there :-). Did not waste time and got down to blogging!!!!