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Beautiful Memory: Learning, Belonging and Other Musings
High School Reminiscences, part 4 of 16
Correct me if I am wrong, ever since we humans printed something on a piece of paper and started calling it money, the craze to make ‘careers’ has turned out to be something of a means to an end – as in getting to a goal, often foully like a thief or holily like a bishop! Let me explain…
I don’t profess to know the right answer but everybody understands the fact that to earn this piece of human ‘invention’ we get serious, sometimes too serious about our careers and work like Machines, forgetting that we are Humans.
Life is what you make it
Who decides what you should pursue in life. What if I say Life is not all about a career to be made? I don’t know about you but I would beg you to please believe this: It's all about life and we have only one to live in; one life to love. Love will find a way. Life will find a way. Do what you want to do: make a career or unmake a career, but make it really worth it and justified while you are here. You never know what might happen the next moment, so just live today and die tomorrow or whenever the Call from Above comes. Sure career is important but not to the cost of your happiness, or even friendship. That’s some Bathroom Philosophy if you like.
True that often Destiny, Parents and Society’s endorsement to what you will ultimately end up doing in life matters, at any rate in our country it does. Yet getting into something without duly acknowledging, in reverence, the above-mentioned all-knowing all-controlling troika can turn out to be an act of blunder rather than a boon. But of course, if you fancy living by your idiomatic edict: My Way or the Highway and don’t give two hoots and a holler about the triumvirate then the ball is truly and firmly in your court, meaning your life is in your hands you may treat it the way you like.
Think about this: A generation or two previously (in the late 1980s), career aspiration was nothing short of a deeply emotional affair for most school-goers like us. Contemplating it day and night was our favourite pastime, but not at the cost of losing some wonderful friendships which can happen only once in a lifetime. So what happened at school? I think it was mainly because there were not enough colleges then where we could get admission easily and not to mention the paucity of other opportunities also which was another dogged reality of life contributing to our general angst-ridden student life. However, with today’s generation – Millennials as they are stereotypically called – it might seem to be less so. With opportunities abound they can’t complain, can they? Indeed, they can’t. But as it happens, in this day and age, when opportune circumstances for making a lucrative career prevail, friendship is frequently the first casualty. Neither feelings pull at your heartstrings, nor eyes well up with tears. Two years of companionship, laughter, and jokes, gone.
Friendship takes a backseat, and even quickly dispensed with, as the Millennials just don’t mind moving on to new vistas to make all their dreams come true at the cost of their friendship. Though our generation had an upper hand at making friends as there were hardly any distractions like Smartphones, Social Media, or Internet then, we too were equally guilty on that score. Many from my class of the late 1980s couldn’t care less or could even be bothered to develop a deeper friendship. Why? Well, I don’t think I have a valid answer to that loaded question. Hawkish Sribathtub, Baljee Risla, and Hangorag Tarik come to mind. Sadly, once when the context of school was removed and whatever little formal acquaintanceship we had as classmates, it was all over. I wonder, how they have fared in their own life, without any old friendship helping them on their way to becoming grown-ups, adults. God only knows.
This much I have understood: without friends, life cannot be as meaningful, exciting, and fulfilling. Thank God, my friendship with P.S.V.V.S.T.U.V.W.X.Y.Z. Ramraj was the sole and miraculous saviour in the face of the whole sordid affair of all-round friendlessness in the class; though I can’t possibly stop thinking about some of the most exciting classmates I’ve had the pleasure to associate with: Rushma, Mitu, Thomas (Doubting Thomas?) and the fellow school bus traveller ‘smiley pastor, foxy trickster’ Topal Chapathi from Class Eleven, every one of them was endowed with a lovely bent of mind, great smiles, attentive, and highly pleasing and enjoyable company. One would run out of adjectives and still be unable to chronicle the feeling of appreciation one had for them. Suffice to say that they were such lovely people!
Typical Indian mentality!
For instance, take into account the all-encompassing words: ‘career aspiration’ which, since Time began, ranks as a career no. 1 in our country: Engineering-B.Tech./B.E. (and of course, Medicine-MBBS). Now, I hate to exaggerate or generalise things unnecessarily but that is what seems to be the reality, let’s admit, we knew all long.
With scores of poorly ranked private degree colleges/institutions dotting various locales of our city and the outskirts, one can hardly crib or complain about the easy availability of educational avenues that are on offer these days. People simply choose engineering as their profession as if there’s nothing else to do in life. The problem is we are abusing an otherwise excellent field of study. In earlier times, people used to do engineering because they loved machines and computers or want to create something new but now all that noble thought has started to degrade into a status symbol or in some cases ‘time pass’ or to quickly get a ‘job’ somewhere and get it done with. But hehe there’s a catch. It isn’t as easy as it seems, dude.
With scores of engineering colleges (read factories!) available, anybody can become an engineer these days. Most do it because it’s there and it is far easier to get a seat in one of many such ‘factories’ than being expected to do anything else, or maybe someone told them to do it so they went ahead and did it, or they do it because of the so-called “IT boom”. As an adverse consequence of that thing happening year after year, most of the students are ending up being unemployed engineers! Hordes of such ill-advised people, who, label themselves as “Dudes” (pathetic!), enter engineering colleges seem less interested in doing engineering but more interested in eyeing a ‘job placement’. Needless to say, the present scenario is scary as the current generation of “Dudes”, who are incapable of learning Literature or natural sciences or any other course, find a way to go through a four-year engineering course!
I wonder if they think that they made engineering the biggest mistake of their life since 80% of these graduates are starkly unemployable as they lack new-age technological application skills needed to work not just in software-related IT jobs but across industries. Enjoy!
In the present day, there are hundreds of Engineering (Engg. in short) colleges mushroomed in and around the state. If anyone even just as simple as expressing a desire to get an admission in one of them, one can get it quite easily with not an iota of trouble experienced whatsoever – making a joke of an otherwise good field of study. Easy admission; if you have the money and ‘quota’. Ever heard of herd mentality? Engineering has its fan following (read herd mentality). Hordes of people make a run for it every year. The fact is that most of these hordes go seek admission to an Engineering college with a single-minded determination to get a ‘job placement’, and truly meaningful learning is relegated to the back seat. Therefore, as is the case now, if you have only a “job” high up on your agenda how can proper learning ever come about in the psyche of the engg. students? No wonder most of these candidates are found to be appallingly unemployable as a result of that reality.
Non-descript private engineering colleges that have proliferated everywhere are partly to be blamed for offering ‘easy money, easy admission’ to all and sundry. Candidates who are not at all competent enough to think properly about what they wish to do in life are offered admissions. Following the herd going in the general direction of an engineering college located somewhere is the norm of the day. The herd thinks that doing an engineering course from just about anywhere will guarantee the “jobs” they expect during campus job placement. Little do they know that things are not all that hunky-dory when they come out of college and look for jobs. Most don’t get placed while some do. Jobs are never guaranteed even if you have become some kind of ‘engineer’ from among the floundering lot of so-called engineers. God help these candidates if HR managers refused to take them. How will HR consider them for employment if “they don’t even know anything”?
The problem is that for youngsters like them getting an engineering seat is far too easy and convenient a deal for getting a job placement than anything else in their life which doesn’t guarantee one: All you’ve to do is just show some ‘rank’ you got from writing a mass entrance exam, pay the fee at the queue-less counter and exit with an admission receipt in your pocket! Look Maa so easy! These people are sure to pass out and get to be an ‘engineer’! As simple as it gets.
Here I go once more! Getting an engineering seat is a cakewalk, there are hundreds available for the taking. In sharp contrast, medical colleges are understandably a countable few, and getting an admission in any of them is hard work and has to be very well-deserved by the aspirant, and obviously, nearly all of these medical colleges are bound to be good institutions of par excellence, unlike their engineering counterparts who have shot themselves in the foot. So only the ablest get their Medical seats. But – and that’s an important ‘but’ – when it comes to getting an engineering admission the struggle for it is often negligible compared to what goes into earning a medical seat.
That’s how fast and easy things have become in the new millennium that no one needs to fret about getting an admission in an Engineering college – in sharp contrast to our long-gone apologetic generation who had to endure a Donkey’s load of suffering to secure a place in the Indian sun. Little wonder why most engineering graduates these days are found to be unemployable!
Not for nothing we say, Old is Always Gold. So there you have it. Case closed.
By Arindam Moulick
Disclaimer: This blog is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
I don’t profess to know the right answer but everybody understands the fact that to earn this piece of human ‘invention’ we get serious, sometimes too serious about our careers and work like Machines, forgetting that we are Humans.
Life is what you make it
Who decides what you should pursue in life. What if I say Life is not all about a career to be made? I don’t know about you but I would beg you to please believe this: It's all about life and we have only one to live in; one life to love. Love will find a way. Life will find a way. Do what you want to do: make a career or unmake a career, but make it really worth it and justified while you are here. You never know what might happen the next moment, so just live today and die tomorrow or whenever the Call from Above comes. Sure career is important but not to the cost of your happiness, or even friendship. That’s some Bathroom Philosophy if you like.
True that often Destiny, Parents and Society’s endorsement to what you will ultimately end up doing in life matters, at any rate in our country it does. Yet getting into something without duly acknowledging, in reverence, the above-mentioned all-knowing all-controlling troika can turn out to be an act of blunder rather than a boon. But of course, if you fancy living by your idiomatic edict: My Way or the Highway and don’t give two hoots and a holler about the triumvirate then the ball is truly and firmly in your court, meaning your life is in your hands you may treat it the way you like.
Think about this: A generation or two previously (in the late 1980s), career aspiration was nothing short of a deeply emotional affair for most school-goers like us. Contemplating it day and night was our favourite pastime, but not at the cost of losing some wonderful friendships which can happen only once in a lifetime. So what happened at school? I think it was mainly because there were not enough colleges then where we could get admission easily and not to mention the paucity of other opportunities also which was another dogged reality of life contributing to our general angst-ridden student life. However, with today’s generation – Millennials as they are stereotypically called – it might seem to be less so. With opportunities abound they can’t complain, can they? Indeed, they can’t. But as it happens, in this day and age, when opportune circumstances for making a lucrative career prevail, friendship is frequently the first casualty. Neither feelings pull at your heartstrings, nor eyes well up with tears. Two years of companionship, laughter, and jokes, gone.
Friendship takes a backseat, and even quickly dispensed with, as the Millennials just don’t mind moving on to new vistas to make all their dreams come true at the cost of their friendship. Though our generation had an upper hand at making friends as there were hardly any distractions like Smartphones, Social Media, or Internet then, we too were equally guilty on that score. Many from my class of the late 1980s couldn’t care less or could even be bothered to develop a deeper friendship. Why? Well, I don’t think I have a valid answer to that loaded question. Hawkish Sribathtub, Baljee Risla, and Hangorag Tarik come to mind. Sadly, once when the context of school was removed and whatever little formal acquaintanceship we had as classmates, it was all over. I wonder, how they have fared in their own life, without any old friendship helping them on their way to becoming grown-ups, adults. God only knows.
This much I have understood: without friends, life cannot be as meaningful, exciting, and fulfilling. Thank God, my friendship with P.S.V.V.S.T.U.V.W.X.Y.Z. Ramraj was the sole and miraculous saviour in the face of the whole sordid affair of all-round friendlessness in the class; though I can’t possibly stop thinking about some of the most exciting classmates I’ve had the pleasure to associate with: Rushma, Mitu, Thomas (Doubting Thomas?) and the fellow school bus traveller ‘smiley pastor, foxy trickster’ Topal Chapathi from Class Eleven, every one of them was endowed with a lovely bent of mind, great smiles, attentive, and highly pleasing and enjoyable company. One would run out of adjectives and still be unable to chronicle the feeling of appreciation one had for them. Suffice to say that they were such lovely people!
Typical Indian mentality!
For instance, take into account the all-encompassing words: ‘career aspiration’ which, since Time began, ranks as a career no. 1 in our country: Engineering-B.Tech./B.E. (and of course, Medicine-MBBS). Now, I hate to exaggerate or generalise things unnecessarily but that is what seems to be the reality, let’s admit, we knew all long.
With scores of poorly ranked private degree colleges/institutions dotting various locales of our city and the outskirts, one can hardly crib or complain about the easy availability of educational avenues that are on offer these days. People simply choose engineering as their profession as if there’s nothing else to do in life. The problem is we are abusing an otherwise excellent field of study. In earlier times, people used to do engineering because they loved machines and computers or want to create something new but now all that noble thought has started to degrade into a status symbol or in some cases ‘time pass’ or to quickly get a ‘job’ somewhere and get it done with. But hehe there’s a catch. It isn’t as easy as it seems, dude.
With scores of engineering colleges (read factories!) available, anybody can become an engineer these days. Most do it because it’s there and it is far easier to get a seat in one of many such ‘factories’ than being expected to do anything else, or maybe someone told them to do it so they went ahead and did it, or they do it because of the so-called “IT boom”. As an adverse consequence of that thing happening year after year, most of the students are ending up being unemployed engineers! Hordes of such ill-advised people, who, label themselves as “Dudes” (pathetic!), enter engineering colleges seem less interested in doing engineering but more interested in eyeing a ‘job placement’. Needless to say, the present scenario is scary as the current generation of “Dudes”, who are incapable of learning Literature or natural sciences or any other course, find a way to go through a four-year engineering course!
I wonder if they think that they made engineering the biggest mistake of their life since 80% of these graduates are starkly unemployable as they lack new-age technological application skills needed to work not just in software-related IT jobs but across industries. Enjoy!
In the present day, there are hundreds of Engineering (Engg. in short) colleges mushroomed in and around the state. If anyone even just as simple as expressing a desire to get an admission in one of them, one can get it quite easily with not an iota of trouble experienced whatsoever – making a joke of an otherwise good field of study. Easy admission; if you have the money and ‘quota’. Ever heard of herd mentality? Engineering has its fan following (read herd mentality). Hordes of people make a run for it every year. The fact is that most of these hordes go seek admission to an Engineering college with a single-minded determination to get a ‘job placement’, and truly meaningful learning is relegated to the back seat. Therefore, as is the case now, if you have only a “job” high up on your agenda how can proper learning ever come about in the psyche of the engg. students? No wonder most of these candidates are found to be appallingly unemployable as a result of that reality.
Non-descript private engineering colleges that have proliferated everywhere are partly to be blamed for offering ‘easy money, easy admission’ to all and sundry. Candidates who are not at all competent enough to think properly about what they wish to do in life are offered admissions. Following the herd going in the general direction of an engineering college located somewhere is the norm of the day. The herd thinks that doing an engineering course from just about anywhere will guarantee the “jobs” they expect during campus job placement. Little do they know that things are not all that hunky-dory when they come out of college and look for jobs. Most don’t get placed while some do. Jobs are never guaranteed even if you have become some kind of ‘engineer’ from among the floundering lot of so-called engineers. God help these candidates if HR managers refused to take them. How will HR consider them for employment if “they don’t even know anything”?
The problem is that for youngsters like them getting an engineering seat is far too easy and convenient a deal for getting a job placement than anything else in their life which doesn’t guarantee one: All you’ve to do is just show some ‘rank’ you got from writing a mass entrance exam, pay the fee at the queue-less counter and exit with an admission receipt in your pocket! Look Maa so easy! These people are sure to pass out and get to be an ‘engineer’! As simple as it gets.
Here I go once more! Getting an engineering seat is a cakewalk, there are hundreds available for the taking. In sharp contrast, medical colleges are understandably a countable few, and getting an admission in any of them is hard work and has to be very well-deserved by the aspirant, and obviously, nearly all of these medical colleges are bound to be good institutions of par excellence, unlike their engineering counterparts who have shot themselves in the foot. So only the ablest get their Medical seats. But – and that’s an important ‘but’ – when it comes to getting an engineering admission the struggle for it is often negligible compared to what goes into earning a medical seat.
That’s how fast and easy things have become in the new millennium that no one needs to fret about getting an admission in an Engineering college – in sharp contrast to our long-gone apologetic generation who had to endure a Donkey’s load of suffering to secure a place in the Indian sun. Little wonder why most engineering graduates these days are found to be unemployable!
Not for nothing we say, Old is Always Gold. So there you have it. Case closed.
By Arindam Moulick
Disclaimer: This blog is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.