“Mera beta engineer banega ! ” …. ” Mera beta doctor banega ” …
A note I wrote few years back … thought to port it to this new blog on mine… The thoughts are a bit dated and I think I should write a revised version of this.. But till I do so – Thought to keep this for my memories.
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Translated to english, these words echo the stereotypical thought process of the teeming middle class of my country… every one aspires to be a doctor or an engineer… given a thought, this does not seem to be a wrong or unrealistic .. but really every one ? Does everyone wish to be that… ? Or is it the way the society and our traditions attempts to shape us up… Believe it would be nice to probe a little deeper into this…
With the ever-increasing population, comes the want and need for survival. The fight for survival to have the basic requirements for living and just sustain.. I mean, for a major chunk of the middle class it is just trying to be alive and carry on with livelihood with the attempt to fulfill the very basic human needs. Seldom they have the privilege to even think what they want from life.. All actions are kind of driven by the generic tends of our current society and what is being offered to us… it is not the lack of our wish to make the choice, on contrary people are not given the choice to decide, and somewhat compelled to follow the mainstream thought process… and in a nutshell all this macro and micro socio-economic factors channelized themselves in making us dream what we are expected to .. not really what our consciousness wishes for…
Me taking a take on being an engineer is to some extent drive by my own introspections as to why exactly I became one.. Sounds paradoxical, though is the reality… After being in the information technology industry for sometime now, having the opportunity to experience a wide variety of human natures and behaviors across various geographies I really wonder sometimes, why I enrolled myself for the engineering course at my bachelors level.. The most practical answer, again though paradoxical yet again, should be me following the standard template middle class dream… But my parents never encouraged me to be stereotyped, and to be fair they always encouraged me to dream big.. always have had stood by me to be independent and make me stand on my feet… nevertheless, I too am an engineer… As I still explore the answer, believe, in spite of the liberal outlook and willingness to accept new may be seen on the cosmetic exterior sense of ours, somewhere deep-rooted is the apprehensions of social acceptance and appraisals… which prevent our soul to venture out and compel it to resort to the safe haven approach… and thus am an engineer… !!!
Being an engineer has its own perks… Being able to accomplish the gruesome task of earning the certificate, leaving it to the speculations of the knowledgeable humans as to how easy or difficult it is, one is launched directly into the corporate world with a job offer in hand from the many IT firms, riding the still ongoing tech boom in India. It’s again a standardized job, with a baseline compensation level as per the guidelines of NASSCOM, and the question that strikes me is are we getting what we deserve ? Aren’t we actually accepting the baseline job structure pre-defined for the middle class – well yes we are .. and to some that’s what majority of us deserve. We are being taught how to the fulfill the minimum criterion for the degree, and not necessarily be an educated engineer. And with us just meeting the basic requirement, we are better off being offered the pre-identified jobs for us, at least by this, we are guaranteed a job and an opportunity to start off with a decent career. The middle class safe approach mentality applauds this achievement and we are contended with the custom-made pre-designated lifestyle. A lifestyle which has one basic demand – compromise.
Now this gives birth to one more disconnect, as in this mass engineers are few aspiring individuals who still strive to perform and deliver, but are stereotyped, categorized and dumped into same standardized workforce. Though the situation ends up on the brighter note for a handful of brave-hearts, and the bigger percentage shape up their dreams based on adjustments.
As I just manage to confuse the blessed soul who has been kind enough to read through my gibberish, hold on, I have more ….
Expressing a bigger and much wider problem of this nature, needs more space and elaboration, which I believe ought to be done, but to highlight the driving forces helping to cause this –
* Not doing what our free mind wishes to do, rather following the mass.
* Happy to accept the pre-defined and standardized structure provided to us in place the questioning it.
* In-ability to challenge the status-quo by coming out of the follow-the-mass thought process.
* Failing to dream big, being brought up with the general understanding that dream is something only to be used as good night message.
* Disconnect in the bigger education framework of our country thus introducing categorization of aspiring mass based on theoretical prowess in place of application ability and talent.
* Lack of much-needed freshness required in the rusted mentality of the wider population
Cheers,
AM
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