NOW WHAT?!!

Back when I was still a cherubic little boy with little knowledge of the world and its ways, life was mostly simple. Worst, you had to deal with multiple, yes or no questions and a lot of stupid faces. If that wasn’t enough, you could always count on someone else to take care of whatever was bothering you, just by bawling at the top of your voice. However, things started to change over time, and I was expected to tie my own shoelaces, and brush my own teeth. With passing days, life became more and more bothersome, as responsibilities were heaped onto my back without any sign of benevolence.

13 yrs later I walked out of school, thoroughly unsure of what I was going to do, as people around me drew elaborate plans about their future. I was the only one without a clue. I wasn’t too keen on writing the medical entrance. Although I do not cringe at the sight of blood, pulling someone’s entrails out, somehow did not appeal to me. Then there was law. Well, you know what they say about lawyers---they have no conscience. I intended to preserve mine. Engineering, seemed to be very much in vogue, and there were more institutes offering the course, than there were applicants. 4 years?? …piece of cake!!! Too bad, I got the wrong flavor!!!I appeared for every single entrance exam one could possibly register for, only to get creamed by each and every one of them. With my rank, I couldn’t afford to be too picky. Off the list, SCT seemed to be the least disreputable, and so I applied. Well….appearances can be deceiving. It didn’t take me long to discover that I had landed myself, in one of the most godforsaken places on the planet.

4 years have gone by; I’m not any closer to being an electronics engineer than I was when I began the course. Apart from a few genuinely sweet people, most of the teachers in our college, are disgruntled with life in general, and are just looking for a chance to screw you over. And with a university that’s even more messed up, you’ve got a surefire recipe for disaster! All these years, I have wondered what prompted me to make this distinctly wrong choice. Maybe it was the illusion that all engineering graduates end up in well paying jobs, with a lot of benefits, and a good contingency plan. Maybe, that was what urged me to go against my better judgement. I refused to listen to that little voice that has always whispered encouragingly into my ear guiding me the right way. With just the right amount of attendance and only a handful of back papers I’ve somehow managed to stumble along. My inability to keep pace with my mates, during project discussions and other academic activities, subjected me to condescension from my peers. We barely have 6 months left in college and almost everyone is looking to augment their bachelor’s degree with something more, and I’m still stuck with 3 uncleared papers.

Despite the occasional story about a physician who left to become an author or an attorney turned singer, the overwhelming majority of unhappy people choose to stay miserably stuck largely out of pride. The idea of having wasted all these years, in pursuit of that coveted degree isn’t as scary as disapproval from people we love and care about. Rather than fear of wasting the degree this is what prevents us from making the jump.

Writing as a career has yet to find the mass acceptance in India. It is considered as an offbeat career that is supposed to be done in your free time or as a hobby. I’ve always been very passionate about writing. Somewhere in the corner of my brain I’ve often toyed with the idea of writing professionally, but not having enough confidence in my abilities, it never materialized. Once I’m done with college, I seriously intend to take up writing as a full time profession. This time however, I’ll have a B-tech degree to bolster my resume. After all a B-tech degree has to amount to something; not everybody has one!Even though,I may not do anything related to my field of specialization ,a few years down the line,I’ll still be an electronics engineer….a shitty one at that, but an electronics engineer nonetheless!

So far in life I’ve had this abiding belief that everything happens for a reason. The key is to find the lessons. Maybe this was how it was meant to be. I have a feeling everything is just going to snap into place. Well, if they don’t, I suppose, I could always return to SCT as a janitor!