The Eight Ages of An Engineer

I guess celebrating Engineer's day by commemorating Sir Visvesvaraya's birthday would be too mainstream. Plus being from the typical engineering brood and used to doing things only at the fag end of the day (note now), I would like to pay my own respects to the quintessential engineer of this day and age. In the good old Shakespearean style (My Fiction folks would probably know what I am talking about), here is my ode:

The Eight Ages of an Engineer

All the university’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one student in his time plays many parts,

His acts being the eight ages. At first the school passout,

Basking in the glory of his entrance results;

And then the roistering fresher, with his spirit

Full of zest and zeal, ready to take on work

And challenges. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his girlfriend’s eyebrow. Then a nerd,

Full of project ideas, and academic initiatives,

Seeking reputation, yearning for grades in superlatives,

Enter the third year and emerges the wise student,

Observing patterns and knowing teachers, grows prudent.

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth sem shifts

Into strenuous and tiring times,

With spectacles on nose and eyes on laptop;

The heavy timetable wreaking havoc on the minds

The final year comes knocking with a tide

Of placements, exposing a world too wide

Tension builds up and fights nostalgia,

Big decisions loom ahead, time to do away with trivia.

Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history,

Is a farewell and goodbye, to this medley and mystery.

An engineer is born, ready to spread his wings

avec grit, avec guts, avec pluck, avec everything.

Dear fellow engineers!

It's time to feel...

umm...proud? great? swashbuckling?

Cut it.

Maybe it's just time to feel comradeship, pat ourselves on the backs, empathize with each other and tell ourselves that all those memes, all those endless assignments, codes, projects-in short, our lives have not been a complete waste. There is a poem dedicated to us. See the above lines?

Feel good?

Now get back to work.

Happy Engineer's Day folks!