The Society of Mediocre Engineers

Well let us start by not denying that we are a section of contemporary society best represented by the Pied Piper's mice. Only here, the Pied Piper is but an invisible and omnipotent career path.Yes, we are the Engineers. Neither the best, nor the worst; Just in the middle. Let us call ourselves ME, the Mediocre Engineers, as that sounds most appropriate both as a word as well as an acronym. If you are not an engineer or if you do not consider yourself to be a just-in-the-middle kind of an engineer, then you cannot be ME. So please accept my apology and step behind the sideline and watch ME make a mockery of myself.

For the rest, my fellow comrades what do we do about ME? Let us be realistic. This is obviously not going to be an intellectually intense discussion as that is beyond our premise. Remember, "ME is mediocre", that is the mantra. So we cannot let ourselves be carried away by deriving equations of Euler and Gauss or Laplace or Bernoulli. Let us first put our heads together and define who we are.

We are the ones who have got a degree in the engineering sciences without having any knowledge whatsoever of at least half of our coursework. We have stumbled while overcoming a few courses but have eventually made it to the greener pastures. We have collectively hated the first batch of go-getters who cracked the first campus-interviews; but have soon proved our mettle in the second, third or fourth rounds when the "lesser" companies scooped us up. We have shunned the morning lectures as inept and lacking in "concept" only to return to those wooden benches to scribble down the notes because we realized late in the game that the concepts were too big for our little heads. We alienated ourselves from the dull boy Jack because he refused to play. But we were no better at any game either. We played to escape the routine not to enjoy the games. Our cricketing skills were as good as our table tennis. We mocked the intellectually weak for being stupid and the ones superior to us for being bookish (...in some cases we have mistakenly called them "bookies"). We jumped about but never took a leap. We did everything and yet did nothing. And above all, we have no regrets for what we did. In fact we fear regrets, we detest regrets and we protest against anyone amongst us who regrets, for being ME. For regret forces one to think, and thinking is outside our rule book.  

Today we are angry. Very angry, because we have not got the recognition we deserve. Some say that we lack the imagination, courage and foresight to be different. That we run like a starving pariah towards the first morsel that is thrown. But what do they know. They were not there when we packed our bags and left home in our teens, to be different from the boy next door. They weren't there when he dared to journey across the country without a train ticket, just to be different. They weren't there when we walked the hostile streets of an alien land in the darkness of the night, just to be different. If today we meekly stand in line it is not because we were born this way, but because time has taught us to know better.

Among us stands poets, writers, singers, drummers, guitarists, footballers, cricketers, political enthusiasts, debaters, photographers, historians and absolute crackpots. Once we were all different in our own ways. Despite being so we failed to be different. Why?  Because we cared too much about the tears that welled out of the eyes of our loved ones every time we failed some insignificant exams. Because we worried more about our neighbour's snigger and the laughs that reverberated from the front benches when we were rebuked for not understanding the subject that we detested. We cared more about society's feeling than our own. Then why today does society treat us like its dreg? It is an insult upon our clan when the others point towards us and call us IT. It! Nobody told me in grammar school that humans can be addressed as "IT".   Friends, this is our classic Shylock moment, and we must demand our pound of flesh. We must look up from the diurnal routine that enmeshes us and proclaim to the world that "IT is not ME". But there's the rub. How do we do that without taking the mediocrity out of ME. How?

Failing to do so we continue to walk the streets of the metropolis craving to be noticed. Our work is "appreciated", but we have long since known that the word means nothing. It is not worth mentioning in ones epitaph. Our efforts are "recognized" yet only by the people who do not care for it. We are told to stay "motivated", but do not know to what end. Such is the ambiguity about us that we know not whether to rank ourselves as success or failure.

Phew, I feel so good to have exhausted my limited ability to argue. If I put forth one more intelligent argument the whole lot of you may rusticate me for failing to be ME. And since I still fear being rusticated after 13 years of passing out of high school, I will certainly not take the risk. So here I end my rambling with a sincere wish to all my fellow mates of limited success, a little bit of happiness, a slight salary hike, a small car, a tiny flat and everything else in small enough portions as not to disturb the mediocrity in your lives.

Remember never to ask yourself, to ME or not ME. It will end in a tragedy. I tell you.