Boring work-life and no life outside work!

As I listen to “Malare ninne kanathirundhal…” from the Malayalam movie Premam, my mind goes back to my days of working as a Technical writer in Bengaluru. Well, I had watched this movie on my office laptop between editing articles and documents. Let me admit that I cannot understand Malayalam, although I can recognize just a few words. Yet this song makes me fall in love with the voice of Vijay Yesudas again and again. Bengaluru… my city, my home that I left behind on July 24th last year. I miss it terribly! Last year on the same day, I was cribbing about the traffic on ITPL road, when crossing Graphite India signal was like opening the doors to heaven. Back then, I was working for the first time in life and it felt good for a few months. As engineers we are always eager to get out of college and start working. Once we start working, we are cribbing about going back to college. Basically we all suffer from multiple personality disorder, advanced stage and therefore incurable!

Did you know that Ashton Kutcher was an engineer? Just search on the internet for engineers who are famous in other fields and you will find a long list which will give you heart-attacks of varying magnitudes. For example: Kalpana Chawla, Sonu Sood, Madhavan, Rowan Atkinson [Mr. Bean], Raghuram Rajan [Ex-RBI Governor], Chetan Bhagat, so on and so forth. The moral of the story is very simple: We are engineers, we will do everything other than engineering! Especially in India, where if you simply throw a pebble, 8 out of 10 times it could land on an engineer. Every year, the number of engineering degrees handed out is more than the population of the country Bahrain. We love numbers, so to be precise, the number of engineers graduating every year in India is almost 1.5 million [or 15 lakhs]!

Take a deep breath…

Next time, if an annoying aunt advises anyone to become an engineer, you will be prepared to attack her with this number. Well, you can thank me later J But let me tell you, that I am proud to be an Electrical Engineer. I won’t bat an eyelid if I have to repair a motor or operate a circuit breaker. After all, we have learnt to survive the toughest challenge of being one among the 1.5 million in arithmetic progression. A year ago, I was also one of those engineers who had a boring work-life and no life outside work. It could almost give anyone nightmares about a future where you are just stuck, having no clue why you are doing it. Although I am an engineer by profession, I am a writer by passion. One night, while I was sitting at my study table, unable to write a single word for over an hour, the truth stared back at me from the empty page.

It was over…

The engineer had mercilessly killed the writer and I watched helplessly. That night was a realisation. I could either go on with my comfortable life passing each day for the next 30 years or I could change it. Without wasting another second, I chose the latter. After hours of debating with myself, I decided to pursue the M.Tech that I had postponed indefinitely. Today, here I am in the capital of India, watching peacocks from the French window of my room in the university hostel. If anyone had told me last year that I would spend this day writing a blog in the best weather of Delhi, I would have laughed at the possibility. Although post-graduation is not easy, I am happy. Writing has become an integral part of my day and I have learnt the art of juggling time. Many were puzzled about why I had left a comfortable home and job to make my life difficult. They even went to the extent of saying that I was making a blunder and my parents were committing a crime by sending me to Delhi. But I have reached a state of mind, where I no longer worry about what some Tom, Dick and Harry thinks about me. We are just a topic of gossip for them during their evening tea or Sunday brunch. I have discovered myself in this journey of eternal freedom.


No matter how alluring it is, do not get stuck in life if you are not happy. Either you change your life or let it fester for the remaining years. You don’t have to be apologetic if you have an outrageous goal. Remember that, way back in 1900s, Nikola Tesla had dreamt of wireless transmission of electricity and he even devoted his life to make it a reality. If he could dream of the impossible, why can’t we? Be brave and defeat your fears. There is nothing wrong in starting all over again. The best moment to make a decision is NOW! Take your chance and gift yourself a life that you have always wanted…

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