Er.= Engineer??

Well….Who am I?? My certificates prove that my name is Aneesh and my friends prefer
Gopikuttan. I don’t know what my rivals call me. And for the last 22 yrs I am here in this world,
eating and sleeping all the day. In between I found time to literally complete my education. I am not sure how things went. Were they planned? Some of them were really my decisions and some were not. First 12 yrs of my education were simple, fair and calculated. Then, what all I did for the last four years??

I dreamt of waking up early in the morning and successfully failed to make it happen. I had to travel more than 30 km to cross the gate of my college. The buses never waited for me and I never asked them to. I was not interested in chitchat with the bus conductors, yet they found time to question me. 9 O’ clock was too early for me to find my seat in the classroom and I always opted the steps of gallery to serve with my attendance. Punctuality was the word left without any meaning in the dictionary of my campus life.

I always have had my time to spend with my friends under the shades of The Mech tree. I kept my eyes on pretty girls however busy I was. Though I accepted great amount of disappointment, I was not upset. I was confident and continued to ogle. ‘One day son, but not today’. I know where my horizon lies. Anyway I could save some money and I never felt deprived of a Bajaj pulsar. That’s the biggest advantage of not having a girlfriend. The crowded and punctual college bus was obviously not my choice. The Pallimoola bus stop and Vimala Women’s College were my destinations. I may have favoured churidar over jeans or natural over artificial.

I wondered how well my watch liked the boring lectures and preferred to run so slowly. And the
same watch moved so fast on the days of exams. How irresponsible it was!! It was hard for me to
distinguish between physics and chemistry labs. I worked hard in the workshops, but not knowing what I am going to make. I discovered electrical machine lab as the “Hell of Mech”. I broke the fuse, still they got me passed thanks to the non insured motors. Assignments were the only way to get familiarized with the functioning of Photostat machine and they made me deal with late night hours. And exams were thorn in the flesh or sometimes cherry on the cake. I witnessed 110 mechanical engineers finding out 237 solutions for the single problem and waiting for moderation. Passing the exam was only ‘one night task’ for me. I used to fill the university role number by myself and waited for Aneeth [sits next to me and the stupid topper] to turn his answer sheets to me. I passed AMS and DOM without wasting a single additional page.
But the Mechlife was unique. It was Royal in every sense. The mass bunks, celebrations, cricket
and football matches and fight against the fascists ….so on… don’t forget the late submissions and
struggle to get internal marks touching 35. The golden 35!!!!.. yes.. and now what????

Here is a 22yr old boy waiting to bear that prestigious tag “The Engineer” without learning
engineering. I know many preceded me and many are succeeding me, and many are sailing along
with me. And of course I learned one thing from the past four years “ It is not necessary for an
Engineer to be an Engineer”.