Doctored and Engineered........!!!

Does the word IT sound more familiar than Intelligence? What does Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Gurgaon and Salt Lake Sector V have in common? Do you come across CTS, TCS, Infosys and Accenture more than SAIL or Larsen & Toubro?? Do u see a generation of youngsters sleeping during daytime to accomodate their USA time shift jobs?? Do the names of obscure of Technical Colleges in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu (even West Bengal these days) sound more appealing to the housewives than some of the premier institutes of our country?
Isnt it that the guy next door studying medical next door fuelling jealosy and similar aspirations in your mind. Isnt it, that every parent likes an appron clad guy with a stethoscope around the neck or rather the engineer in the neighbourhood with his fat paycheck and flashy automobiles??

Welcome to the generation obsessed with Engineers and Doctors...

The obsession generally starts early, more with the parents than the incoherent, couch potato, video game crazy, sit at home school kid. If its class 9, the parents get ready to send their child to several science and maths coaching factories. Computer, Biology (or even IT or Biotechnology in some show off schools) as an additional subject in the class 0 boards is as essential as air and water. A 90% in boards is imperative or how will a father face his office colleagues, a mother her gossip hungry neighbourhood and the child his/her mentors. Reason, one MUST study science in 11 and 12th standard which in turn is essential is necessary to get into medical or engineering.

A student is pushed to the limits in his/her 11 and 12. A heavy syllabus, innumerable tutions, physics, chemistry, maths, hindi/bengali, english, computer/biology etc etc... Add to it, school's obsession for good results in boards and parents and tutors expectations of good performance in competitive examinations. A poor science student goes through hell. I m not undermining the commerce and humanities students though. But, even if one fares poorly in 10th boards, even if one doesnt have aptitude in Science, one is forced to take it up. I have seen it often heard, "Commerce, Arts?? why on earth, why not science? Did not score good marks or what?" The irony is that, nowadays the trend has been so much of science with its cream o students that poor humanities and commerce have become victims. People generally expect that good students go to science and not otherwise, as the masses do. As if, history or geography is out of the blue, Commerce is unnecessary in our country's development, Literature never really was known as a subject, Archaeology is such a waste, "oceanography??What :O Come again...", Art? Can u make it??? ....

Yet, Rabindranath Tagore is lauded as the one the greatest Bengalis or Indians, everyone loves reading novels and blabering English with peers at Cafe Coffee day or City Centre, and all of it came without art or literature. Alas, our middle class !!!.....every subject has its own right, it has its weightage and its own role to play in society. Every subject offers its own peaks and chance for excellence and recognition.
Films are enjoyed by all, films that are the work of artists and men with vision and creative and not nerdy, window eyed engineers or stetho hung medical professionals. It takes least mention to stress how lucrative films and the level of appreciation its stretches to... true, not everybody can make it to become filmmakers, but compare the numbers with as many applying for engineering....

Coming back to the education scene... With a very competitive admission scenario and today's urban culture very select few make it to elite engineering or medical institutions from the cities. The rest... thanks to a booming industry of private engineerining and management colleges with their bare minimum admission criteria, mass intake, fat semester fees and donations, parents rush to get their children a "secure" career. People mostly see their neighborhood students joining such colleges more frequently than Presidency or Xaviers, offering BSc or Bcom or BA and thus institutes from Haldia, Techno, Heritage, ABC, XYZ, some college near Bangalore gain more popularity. The popularity not necessarily from performance but from the number of people getting engineering admits. People see engineering as lucrative, but are all engineers well off??? Engineering gained reputation as a plush profession over the last few decades. The situation was different. Engineering institutes were mainly government owned and regulated, numbers were few, country was growing and developing, and engineers were in demand, and in the process they got well paid. IITians, RECians and people from Roorkee, BESU, etc. gained popularity abroad and in India. Nowadays, people fail to realise, that just an engineering degree from a "what did u say?" engineering college is not enough security for a good career, they are not the same, as the well off engineers passed out 2 decades back. But still, there is a mad rush to get people into engineering and medicine, even at the cost of lakhs in donation, whereas quality seats offering Science and other degrees remain vacant of occupied by a lesser intellectual strata.
Not everybosy passing out of these arbit engineering colleges get a job. Moreover, a majority or almost all of these people who get jobs are placed in the IT sector, which they soon get bored off after sometime and are confused about their lives again. Enter "Management", and there again is the same old story. The neighbourhood aunty has forgotten about u by then. For her, the story ended the moment u entered engineering, not until ur career reached a stage of fulfillment.

The loss is to society itself, which is pressurizing itself unnecessarily to chase an obsession and closing its doors to other opportunities and ventures. Maybe, we still have a long way to go until this bubble bursts. Till then, the IT groom continues to be in demand.

Phew!!!!

What about Luck.....!!!

How do you explain the unexpected, the uncalled for and unrationale??? It was just the "luck" that you found out your pocket was picked just before you were about to buy a ticket for a show that was about to go housefull? Or how do you explain that among all the people in the picnic, you were the one who lost his cellphone?? Why is it that you end up on the losing side every time you play a cricket match even though u played really well. Ridiculous!!!

As a non-believer of religion or god or wateva, i have this feeling that people decide their own fate. Whatever happens, is due to their own actions. Isnt it, that everything that happens in this world are decided by some rationale or scientific governance? Is there some occurence or phenomenon out of bounds of scientific laws??? Dont think so... Accidents occur due to our mistakes, floods and famine are due to our misuse of the environment or natural occurences, not the wrath of gods. People become successful due to their own hard work, not due to god's blessings or " maa ka ashirvaad"...

Yet, everythings does not go according to set rules, there is some external factor always working. After months of preparation before an exam, u fall sick days before it. You were supposed to meet your girlfriend before her flight to US and there was so much of rain and traffic jam that you never made it. You lost a job within months of joining it. Your grandfather expired just before your marriage. Are they occuring due to some natural governance or are they out of the blue?? Certainly one cannot explain such things, and thats y probably people felt the need for introducing a word such as "luck" which does not have a weightage of its own or clearly defined meaning, but has its significance and unrationale explanation!!! People would say, perhaps those things werent probably meant to be urs, they never really belonged to u, or they never really were about to happen. The best phase is the eternal " too good to be true."

So, i do pray to god before attending an important event, not blindly out of faith, but to have that X-factor on my side... Hehehe...

Fashion, Love and Attraction

The generations of today are going through confused phase of fashion sense. Starting from the teens, both the sexes are doing whatever they can to get there looks appealing to their peers, aping the filmstars, cricketers, the westerners....sometimes blindly. Some of us, ape western attires even though they are no match in mentality, mindset or occupation to the person they are getting it from.

When Amir Khan sported that crew cut spikes in Dil Chahta hai, the entire country crowded into saloons to get themselves trimmed. Not later, when John Abraham and Dhoni had long hair, the entire mass abstained from having a hair cut. If that punk rap artist had 2 piercings on his eyebrow, so be it, i gotta have atleast one too...That american (school drop out) in that movie i saw last week had those sexy low waist jeans which were almost drooling down his ass... Hep, weren't they !!! I should have one of those.
And what not Guys go for, wrist bands, bracelets, ear and nose piercings, low waists (read very low), short Tees, Sunglasses at night, leather jackets in summer, Leather gloves (even though he never drove a bike), all those bucks spent at hairstylist and punk Tees and Belts. All for fashion. Ladies get that this "dude" feeling about you.
What an effort to get decked up and draw attention. That eye candy in college should eye me above anyone else.... And all those ladies, " hot, isnt he " but when it comes to " who u wanna date?"... "who me? oh puhleezz...not those 'over the top' people around everywhere, i want somebody who will care for me, understand me and love me a lot..............................."

The people from whom fashion is inspired today, mainly those in films and fashion, are professionals. They're profession demands them to look good and trendy all the time, otherwise the public wont love it. They like to dream and they like new things to look forward to. The actors are have to experiment with their looks to do justice to their characters. It is not necessary that all those styles have to suit everyone out there, but nobody ever cared to think about that. I have mostly seen the pig heads trying too much. The intelligent seldom have a "L-O-U-D" written all over them, probably because elegance and enigma comes naturally.

Was surrinder saani in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi finally appealing in the end??? To me, he was, because that was the best potrayal of how a guy truly loves a woman. He was unimpressive with his looks, simple in his approach and non expressive with his feelings. A tad too shy however, for the comfort of the generation of today.

The eye catching look, the smart moves and the flashy language, are all a deception...

Ease@Kolkata

The average bengali usually starts his day at 8. He wakes up with a huge yawn or exclamation of how good the sleep was or how it wasnt!!! A bengali is usually handicapped without running to the bathroom in the next few seconds, followed by a yell at his wife for the morning tea. It is usually punctuated by the door bell of the maid servant. The morning tea is a long affair with a few more bengalis joining in for an early morning adda, with the newspaper (anadabazar or bartaman) in prominence. The bengali then sets forth towards the market for groceries, vegetables and fish. The fish market is the best place where u can actually get the true picture of bengal. With innumerable varities of fish and their speculative prices, the air rises with the cacaphony of a hundred fish fanatic bengalis, bargaining and picking the best fish. Here, again, one sees many familiar faces and a string of discussions from the office boss to street dogs, from cricket to politics. When time finally swings to about 10 am, he returns home with a fat bag full of his fresh buys. He by now realises that its lunch time for the office goer and has to deal with a frantic wife managing her cooking and all the morning chores at the same time with a loud expression of associated complaints. Only a well cooked meal of ucche bhaja, daal, torkari, maach or mangsho with doi, chatni, papor bhaja and mishti(sweets) satisfies the taste sensitive babu.

By 11-30, the office goer finally sets off with his paan filled mouth to catch the auto or bus to his office where he is greeted by other babus relaxing at their desks after signing the register. By another hour, its lunch time and work is suspended. An after that, the tea break and so on and so forth. By 4 or 5 pm he is ready to head home. The evenings sets off with carrom or cards at the para(locality) rock( read street pavement).
A bengali is satisfied with whatever he gets, he doesnt believe in compromising leisure for earning that extra penny

Thats the pace of life in kolkata. Work is the most difficult of things to get through. Add to it, the strikes and bandhs every other week. Unions and Associations, demonstrations and protests......

Its high time, we woke up

Of Ambitions and Disillusions

Ambition is a quality associated with most of us who have a zeal to do something meaningful out of their lives. Accomplishment is out of the way without a strong grit for achievement. Often, ambitions people, become out of the way obsessed with their goals and forget everything else in that process of pursuance of that. They often become blind and seem to reach for that target at any cost. On the other hand, lies a class who have ambitions but seem to do nothing about it. Such people and such targets are meaningless. A perfect balance is necessary. A focussed, steady and healthy pursuit is a successful pursuit.

Now, lets say, someone achieves a goal he sets himself to. What next? Obviously, another target, and another and another. Now then, is it possible to achieve all of them? Neither is it possible to achieve all of them and neither is it possible, that one could not achieve anything. Life without ambition or targets are meaningless. What for is life, when you have something to look forward to, something to achieve, something to achieve meaningfully. But if one achieves everything, life becomes null, its stripped of its excitement. A person who always wins cannot find happiness. Challenges are necessary. Thus, somethings in life are better left unfulfilled. One cannot achive everything, but one should always dream of achieving so.

Dream!!! So be it..........