For the perplexed karam yogis of my age, it usually starts 8-9 years back, when kids like me get distracted towards a path of career building with a focused insight of what they need to do in their life. And to their dismay, for some like me again, who with all the grace of Lord, choose engineering to be their road to perdition, the journey which seems so simple and straight is actually a beautiful tapestry of illusions. Few of you reading this might contradict with me on the above thought but with no disregard to any of your emotions towards the field, I seriously recommend those haves not to read any further to disagree with the have not’s.
So we were discussing our eternal path to damnation. Once set en route, we do not look back. After 3-4 years of rigorous preparation and coaching (which is told to us to be the best in the nation or at least best within our reach), one fine morning we sit to write our destiny believing that our life changes hereafter. For few amongst us it definitely does but the rest like me either settle for the side salad of the main course or decide to wait for another serving. At that moment we actually never realize that no matter how delicious the salad tastes it’s only good for nothing more than digestion (pun intended). Well, leaving the bygones to be bygones, we embark upon a new journey, with a focused insight again for what we need to do in our 4 years of degree program. Wandering in a desert of opportunities we are always made to believe that our future is pregnant with great opportunities but unlike all the mammals this future never delivers on time. So with hopes against hope we keep on chasing the wild goose because somehow during this journey after our continual humiliation for being an Engineer, we develop an ego of being one.
Towards the end of this chase, we once again try our luck of writing our destiny and once again instead of the main course we had ordered or atleast wished to order, we have to be satisfied with the salad or just the wine depending upon the restaurant we chose to eat in. Hereafter we realize the journey doesn’t end here and we set our sails for the nearest coast possible. We are left with some selected options viz: MBA, GMAT, GRE and a less traveled but equally illusive road of Civil services. Now we put in extra efforts to sail against the wind with a job in hand and a focused insight for the final destination. In this seemingly endless endeavor of writing our destiny and waiting for our tomorrow to deliver, we actually forget to read what is already written. At no point of time during this collision course we are ready to accept that we might have taken the wrong path or the wrong turn.
This is where we need to define a line which should have been drawn some years back but I guess being an engineer we never learn to create boundaries or to define limits, instead going beyond them is what keeps us alive.
