Mera beta engineer banega !!! (my son will become an engineer)

Yes, you guessed it right........it's that age-old stigma we Indians just cannot seem to shrug off......the eternal question in the middle class mind......Doctor or Engineer?...which gets more specific...computers or biotech?....even more specific...JAVA course or GRE? And the questions just keep coming!!!

Even though there are tremendous academic, peer and social pressures on today's youth and children in a country like India, there is no denying the fact that we seem to somehow, rather sheepishly, fall prey to the general herd mentality all around us....and often get flown along the strongest drift of the times! The Indian rational tradition of thinking and decision (which we, at other times, pride ourselves on) conveniently gives way to a false and hypocritical sense of future security and moral righteousness! The result? A lot of good artists, musicians, historians, poets, archaeologists and sportsmen turn up carrying T-scales and the obnoxious label of "engineering student", under the overwhelming umbrella of social respectability and class.

We keep hearing about the pathetic fates met by those few rebels among our friends and cousins, who chose to follow their passion and in the process lost out on the "race of life"! Society treats them like outlaws, as if engineering is the only divine profession worth living in.......well actually, there are a few laws driving today's engineers , not found in the numerous career counseling guide books....and who know them better than the unfortunate few, like myself, who really wanted to engineer science and almost ended up a disillusioned techie!

Law 1: Right to JEE (Joint Entrance Examination, the premier engineering entrance exam in India) is a birth-right, and every student shall have to take it, even if they prefer facing the firing squad to a maths paper!
Law 2: All important and high-scoring subjects need to be captured in notes......not the other way round.....and during exams?....well, careful strategy...after all : "Hum aam mein sab nange hai!" (Among us we are all the same)
Law 3: If you are not exceptionally intelligent and a touch lucky, you will not get to work in your dream job after college...and that is not such a bad thing, is it?
Law 4: After 2 years of work, you will feel like moving on to either an MBA or a masters, without which they say you are doomed...."but hey, 2 more years man...and then sky is the limit!"...career counseling nowadays is almost like marketing to you your own future!
Law 5: Almost every so-called "engineering job", no matter what your pay-scale is, gets intolerable after the first year...worst kept secret...but your "pseudo-engineer ego" is never supposed to give way - especially in front of the "Arts" guys!
Law 6: You feel like having a silent laugh to yourself when they call you "the IT guy" for doing the "Ctrl C Ctrl V" routine day in and day out....but then again, who cares?
Law 7: Before facing the job interview in final year, you never quite realized how important a trivial thing like communication could be!......if only you spared a few hours for the "lowly language subjects" from your JEE preparation that crucial year!

But even with laws and the divine hand of society guiding us engineers, we often stop to ask ourselves......What am I doing? Is this worth it? What if....? But then again, in comes the "herd", pushing and tossing us about.......till we give way and become a part of the crowd! We are engineers, after all...