To B.E. or not to B.E…. part 1
We have this course called Persuasive Communication. The prof really didn’t want to offer it, but we talked him into it. During one of the PC classes, he mentioned how engineers always think and communicate logically. Which immediately set me thinking. A very stereotyped person is the poor engineer. Accused of moral and social weaknesses, material follies, and compromised ethics, the engineer is doomed the moment he steps into his first engineering drawing class. From that moment he has lost all chance of being accepted as a normal human being by his fellow non-engineer human beings.
It is quite a tragedy really. If a normal guy wears a pair of Hawaii slippers out on a weekend its comfortable chic. However let it out that he has a B.Tech degree and works for a software firm and his choice of footware is affrontery and irreverence. “They don’t teach manners at engineering college…” grunts the Commerce graduate. Which is completely untrue. For example every engineer knows that a cigarette is never smoked alone in company, it is always passed. Nor will an engineer ever hog all the alcohol at a weekend drink-a-thon. Never. He always makes sure everyone gets enough. (especially the women, but there are reasons for this as we shall see…) I had a friend who was an expert bartender. The mere sight of a bottle of firewater and his mind would go into mix mode.
Me: Hey!!! Look an old partly drunk bottle of Old Cask lying in the bottle of the drawer. Good for the party?
Friend: (After come quick mathematics in his head…) That should be enough for 17 drinks of 60ml each with an allowance of 100 ml for spills…
Me: Its a party for only mallus…Friend: er… 4 drinks then.
(Yes yes I know no true engineer would leave booze lying around undrunk. They teach you that in first year. Unless you are a teetotaller. Teetoallers learnt how to seal all the cracks in your hostel room door and windows using newspaper.)
Indeed it is unfortunate that people do not appreciate the great computing power of the engineer. Many are the IT behemoths that run on the Indian engineer’s intellect. Infosys, Wipro, Nasa and Desibaba just to name a few. Without him and his complete dedication to his work and his employer where would they be today. These and many other multinationals owe everything to him and his utter lack of social life.
But how can one have social skills if one is told from birth that one has to become an engineer and protect the family from endless ridicule and shame. One spends all his time between tuition centers and school and coaching classes that very soon society is but a sweaty mass to be avoided on local transport. When he goes to a book fair he is bought IIT guides and question banks. When he sees a movie he notices even Rajnikanth in “Padayappa” is a mechanical engineer. (Which reminds me of this good friend who had never read a normal book in his entire life until his dad bought him a classic by mistake. It took him two days before he noticed there were no formulae or questions at the end of each chapter. His dad was not happy to learn that he had got the title wrong and it was not “The Unbearable Lightness of B.E.-ing”.)
Then there are those who accuse the poor engineer of promiscuity. Look, they say, all they do is watch porn. All they do is talk kinky. Have a heart people. Only a person who has gone through four years of mechanical engineering and such allied sciences knows what it means to be deprived. No this is not the deprivation of the non-vegetarian stuck in a Saravana Bhavan for life. No this is infinitely worse. Anything remotely comparable is the plight of the Thakur in Sholay who lost his wife and both arms. Indeed much mirth and celebration happened on the days when women were seen in and around the Mechanical Department. Entire academic proceedings once came to a standstill when a new textbook on fliud dynamics had a pretty lass on the cover. Oh yes we were quite active in trying to handle our deprivation. I distinctly remember the scoring sheet when paper contests were held in our department back then.
Technical Content: 10%
Presentation: 10%
Primary research: 10%
Sex of author: 70% + 40 million bonus points
It wasn’t an easy life by any means. And after all the rat race was over we got recruited into multinational companies who offered us high career growth jobs. HR told us that we were lucky to join a firm that did so much to ensure our jobs were designed to fit our individual strengths and weakness and from the day we joined we would receive personal mentorship. This was told during our orientation programme which took place in a stadium so as to hold all the new recruits. It was a tough life. Employee of the month one day, laid off the other. And still no sign of a cance to propagate the species. Of course some of us decided enough was enough was enough and wrote GRE. For some even that did not work. A very close mate was rushing on his bike to his GRE centre in Chennai, almost out of time when a busfull of Ethiraj College women passed by. The poor fellow had not a chance.
And then there is Bschool with all the women. And boy was it a cultural shock.
“THEY study here?”
“Exchange women actually come here????”
“THEY WON’T EXPEL IF YOU GO TO THE GIRLS DORMS???”
“ALL THAT STUFF IS SHARED???…. YOU CAN COPY IT???…”
Blame culture shock I plead you. not the innocent ignorant technologist. In fact next time you spy an innocent engineer being lambasted for anti-social behaviour spare a thought for his past that has made him the substance abusing, hormone driven animal he is today. It just isnt his fault. It was all society fault. But also remember this. The earth will finally be inherited by the engineer. The man of science will indeed triumph over arts, commerce and such majors. (Except maybe physical education. Those guys are huge sometimes. So they’re cool.) The brave technologist will indeed rewrite our future as we know it. (No seriously he will. All the novels you have read about the future isn’t called chartered-accountancy-fiction is it?) Then the world will be a better place where people are happy, content, and have a lot of free porn.
Related posts:
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- A short aside…
- Trunk Call
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- My Calling…
Mostly random observations on life, culture, offices, the missus and travel. Mostly just random. Updated with laughable infrequency. If you don't see anything new here may I suggest you pop over to our 
Can I share this post with my friends, as a mail forward? I will wait for ur answer until tommorrow(its Oct 30 today). If I dont get any answer to this comment, I will anyway go ahead and share it with my friends. Thanx.
‘We have this course called Persuasive Communication. The prof really didn’t want to offer it, but we talked him into it. ‘
Your best opening line ever, man! You’re my idol. You’re my GOD.
And Anonymous, won’t it be easier to send your friends the link to this page? Just a suggestion..
I see another “travails of single south Indian men…” hitting the mailboxes soon:) Nice one Sidin!
~lakesidey
Oh do forward with.. but with a link…:)
thats what happens to a person after going through “timoshenko and young” to pass his mechanics exam, in the very first year of his college life…..
You are brilliant!
ur B.E.st piece after the travails….
darn. now i’ll have to keep deleting the same thing coming in all my mailing lists
So very true.Noone has described the engineer better !
btw where is Rosie?
iw
u said it!the indian male engineer: bispectacled, sex starved,religiously logical, exercise denied, artistically void!
iw
Nice!
To the anonymous commenter – The right way to “forward” someone’s work is to forward only the first few paragraphs, with a ‘Read more at this site’ link at the bottom.
Same holds if you wanna put someone’s work on your own blog.
I’m considering doing a thesis on that topic
Sidin back at his very best … u rock man …. being a mechanical engineer in IIMB now, i can vouch for many facts given … especially the Thakur without wife and two arms one …..
/bows
mechie’s plight best expressed.. ..u Rock!!
DAMN! Are all southindian mechanical engineers the same?????WHOA!…Sidin, you show me a way to laugh at myself when i read your blog!!
Zimbly grait !
Waiting for Part 2 …
ROFL ROFL..Awesome post Sidin.. But atleast in Mech u had no women which left everything to fantasy..In Chem we had two women and the less said abt them the better..Imagine Hritik Roshan, Jude Law, Hugh Grant and a host of other hunks stranded in an island with just… er.. shakila
Getting it nuh :-p
Bugger, come up with Part 2 fasttt.. really fasttt..
Hey Sidin
Linked this post in my blog. Being a mechanical engineer myself, can say that this is 100% true
how do you justify text in ur posts?
Wait till Scott Adams gets this as a forward. You’ll be on, sitting next to Asok.
You go dude.
Wow. Awesome post. Just read the one about flying, you are SO right about the airport and the flying! Way tuh go!
Very well written sir! Amazing.
hmmm…..sympathetic to Mech engineers….but …the plight of other engineers is not any lesss….we had to sit in the class looking at some non-males sitting in our classes….
SUCH an amazing post without a comment from Rosie??? Not happening!!
Thanks ‘iw’ for remembering..
Sid… need I say any more… ?
Better and better and better and better… (sigh)
I thought I will not publish any comments anymore on blogs, but this one rocks.
Simply superb.
Tell me i am dreaming… Palace drew against Arsenal.. My Chelsea are on top ? Sidin, at the moment life rocks..Cud get better only if i see B.E part – 2 tomorrow when i come to office.. Humor me, pls ?
A Diwali Dhamaka post wouldn’t be out of place ..
pls post no..
That was humorous. Too good and realistic.
Hail the local hero!
Awesome!
Good to see you back in the blog world!
Dude…you are a God when it comes to funnies! This one rivals “The Travails..” IMHO. I’ve forwarded a link to this post to pretty much everyone I know
When is part 2 due?
Great post Sidin!! Makes me wonder watz gonna come up in Part 2. The part where the booze is shared with women seems interesting!
dude!
get ur posts comin
Long time no post? Please oblige, we desperately need a fix of humour….
~http://lakesidey.blogdrive.com
Gosh! I stumbled upon Sidin by chance again. The email subscription thing has been keeping me in the dark all this time. Is anyone else having the same problems? Sidin, please look into this if you can. Would be sad to miss your posts given that they have become (understandably) infrequent…
Srikant
sriks6711.blogspot
the plight of engineers wasn’t too good even among the ancient greeks. so what if u were a greek god? the engineer god was still “not as equal as” the others…
the ancient engineer….. his status had not been high. Of all the Olympian gods only Hephaestus, who labored at the forge and made cunning works of metal (including robots) was portrayed as being dirty, ugly and lame
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/war/Catapults.htm
Great Post! What about the Non-Male Engineers?
This is not about the current post. Spotted you on TV. On Headlines Today. Acumen 2004. Must say the Jamnalal Team routed all ye quizzers. But you guys seemed to be having a good time. Cheers.
You were on TV and you didn’t tell us??!!
)
How mean… We coulda seen you!!!
Anyway, next time you are slated to be on, pls let us know.. (these are the negative sides of being famous
Hey,
Great article but the engineer as a logical person is something I would greatly debate. (The sex starved mechies is absolutely true.) I remember this conversation I had with a comp. engg. bout god which I ended with “so, you see, there’s no need for a god,” to which our hero replied, “oh really? then what is the need for temples?”
Were the same to repeat, I swear I’d be as clueless as I was that day.
But great article man. Hard to believe you’re a Mallu.
Cheers,
~Vijay
In one word too cool…but let me duties of teetoltaller…carrying back the mortal remains of drunken pals to our hostel rooms..clean the corridors Pukie messes
Sidin, great writing dude, waiting for more. What is with you RECT guys and great writing? Read this other post by another RECT guy about engineers..was simply awesome. Check it at:
http://www.wildegoosechase.blogspot.com
This chap has only one post in his blog though,from way back in Aug. Sidin, know him?
Get back to blogging man!
Too unnatural a delay…I am tired of checking this page everyday!
That was a good read. Liked it
Arey you are at home, no ? Put some blog man !!
Arey you are at home, no ? Put some blog man !!
When is Part-2 coming?
Eagerly awaiting it:)
Keep writing. This is by far, one of the best blogs I’ve wandered into.
Roopa
This was bound to happen….
happy Xmas and new year, siddin.
in advance.
iw
Maaannnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!! thats tremendous….i am reminded of my own engineering days
…this touches to the core….all the hidden corners even… u have done a gr8 job … justification complete … bless u pal. 
< prancer >< http://prancer.rediffblogs.com >
Hi Sidin,
This is a great blog! I especially liked your post “Finally….” – but I’m commenting about it on THIS post because it might be missed on the older one
I really enjoyed reading your blog, and I’m gonna give it a link on mine.
merry x’mas y’all
When next? we are waiting
one of the most boaring of Blog….
I discount publishing blog of any nature but, doe not allow the freedom of posting such a boaring ones. It reflects loss of Integrity.
Hey Sidin,
Was looking through Landmark here in Chennai yesterday and saw a ‘best of 1992-1993′ collection of Behram Contractor’s columns. I remembered you immediately and bought it. The guy is excellent and thank you for introducing me to him. I could also see where some of your style comes from.
Reading the foreword of the collection, I got the feeling he was dead too but then I remembered reading on your site that he was not and had written a column on the last Indian elections in April 2004.
SO, I googled and found out that Busybee had indeed passed away on 9th April, 2001. What was the confusion about the April article. Do enlighten.
And thanks again.
Aw come on man, Come on come on come on.
It’s been too hell of a long time! Get that ass moving! IIM-A can’t be THAT busy, day or night! Not to mention that us mortals don’t even know where you “took” placements.
You don’t really want to drive your customers away, do you? It costs 5 times as much to acquire new ones, or something like that!
You’re amazingly funny!! I find very few blogs interesting usually, but I’m really hooked onto yours…
Regarding “textbook on fliud dynamics had a pretty lass on the cover” – lets not forget computer engineers with one of the famous images used to introduce them to image processing – a playboy playmate – unfortunately only the face..
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I have read nearly all your articles Sidin, how did I miss this one. I am an Engineer so I can really appreciate how beautifully you have describe the truth. A gem of an article.
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