3 IDIOTS & ME

Recently I got an opportunity to watch ‘3 idiots’ twice consecutively on to and fro journey between Jamnagar and Mumbai. Hence was forced to recall my Engineering and Hostel life. It’s almost four years since I left the college. Watching 3 idiots was almost (60%) like watching my four years of Engineering in flash back.

In real life we all are mixture of 3 idiots that is we dare to speak our heart out against any authority like (Rancho), we fear from few things like (Raju) and like (Farhan) we are good at something but are doing something else.

I am sure many of you (Engineers) would have passed thru many such ordeals/events like ragging, exam stress, and blunders with professors, friendship, romance, etc. during your engineering days. Here is my version of being a ‘Three Idiot’.

First Year:

Scene-1

In school I was always a non-revolutionary kind of a person. I never asked a question against existing things. I always tried to take system as is and used to play around with it. But I don’t know what happened to me in Nirma. I started questioning each and every thing. At end of first year, like Rancho (scene of Aamir showing graphs to Boman Irani on suicide), I found myself in Electric department’s HOD office. HOD was handling first year student’s attendance. Even though, I planned my attendance thru proxies, buttering professor etc. I somehow missed the target by 1% (I am still searching for a friend who back stabbed and didn’t do my proxies ). I along with Saumyang (friend also shortlisted for lack of attendance) was standing in front of a half deaf HOD. He started scolding us and said we need to give explanation for falling short in attendance or will send strongly worded letters (as in 3 idiots) to our parents. Hearing this (of sending letter to parents) triggered my recently developed revolutionary genes. I always believed once in college, student is responsible for his own actions. College if at all has any problems with student should directly deal with him. College have no ‘rights’ to bother parents. My first reaction to HOD was ‘This system is Victimising us’, how can you send a letter to parents and make them unnecessarily worry. On hearing the words like ‘Victimising’, HOD lost his nerve. The way Boman loses nerve on Rancho, who blames Boman/system for suicide. I was sure to get screwed. To avoid further heated argument between me and HOD, Saumyang intervened and said there is some problem in attendance record and asked to recheck it. HOD asked his assistant to recheck it on his computer. Luckily Saumyang’s record indeed had a problem and assistant confirmed that his attendance was well above the required target. But as faith would have decided to ‘victimize’ me, there was no error in my attendance record and I was indeed short by not 1% but by 5 %. Saumyang was cleared, strongly worded letter was sent at my place. I had to handle a worried call from my parents and few extra assignments. Why the hell college has to bother parents for student’s actions?

Scene – 2

In school in 12th board exam, I got my sketches in biology exam done by a friend (Hemal) seating next to me. My single biggest fear in life was/is to do a ‘drawing’ and still I was into Engineering and that too ‘Civil Engineering’. In first year we had a subject called Engineering Graphics, which had topics like hexagonal view, 3-D perspective etc. If primary school and high school drawing were 120 volt shocks to my brain cells, engineering drawing was 1200 Volt shocks to my brain cells. In second ‘internal’ exam because of fear (like Raju) of failing in Engineering Graphics, I skipped the exam. To avoid facing consequential embarrassing situation I went to my home town (Jamnagar) under the pretext of ‘bad health’. To bribe god, to get me thru Engineering Graphics exam in ‘finals’, I donated (till now only time) blood to a blood bank that visited campus, during result time.  Like student donating milk, prayers etc. in movie.

By the time second year exams started, I had found a friend like Hemal called Darshan, who helped me to get thru 1200 Volts of engineering drawings for rest of my college years.

Second Year:

By the time first year ended, I realized that this is not what I wanted to learn. I was not interested in cement, bricks, structure or environment, what interested me was project management, tenders, balance sheet, project analysis etc. But I come from a family were even a distant relative is engineer, so like Farhan, when I was born ‘Amrut Vani’ was made ‘Mera Beta Engineer Banega’. But if I would not have studied cement, bricks and structure I would not have realized that I don’t like them. It is like a movie, you can’t say whether you like a movie or not unless and until you don’t watch it. 

Third Year:

Even though I was not enjoying what I was studying; my old habit of playing with system helped and was able to manage to stay in top 15-20% of class. By the time second year was complete I had mastered art of playing with ‘engineering education system’. This confidence led me to concentrate on other extra-curricular activities that included playing pranks with friends, pairing friends with college/class gals, fight between friends, going in unknown peoples marriage party near hostel, going after gals in computer department (as civil department lacked good gals  ).

Scene-1:

For many of guys to propose a gal is like a dare of jumping from a cliff without parachute. I started playing a prank with mild souls of my friends Rathin and Darshan. I started pairing them against two gals from our class. I started motivating them to become brave, lose fear, blah blah. The way Rancho motivates Farhan and Raju in a drinking party on staircase. I tried to convince them that even those gals liked them, and they should be ‘brave/Dare’ to propose them. But Darshan turned the discussion 180 degree around and asked me that first I need to be ‘brave/Dare’ and propose a gal from computer dept. on whom I was having a crush since a while. The way Farhan turned discussion around and asked Rancho to propose Kareena. So now I was in soup ‘I had to act on what I had preached’. So we all went to ‘Kareena’ (computer gal), and I went and proposed (as a dare) her (computer gal) and that too in front of a crowd. Sometimes pranks can turn 180 degree against you. .

Scene-2:

By third year instead of blood, passion ran thru our blood vessels. We (my group) were visiting technical festivals at IIT’s; we were winning many national competitions at NIT’s and other top most colleges in Gujarat. In one of the competition, unfortunately I and Manoj (one of my best friend) lead opposing team. Due to some ‘tactics and cheating’ my team won and his team lost. Passion to win was so high that this incident broke our friendship and it still remains broken. This is where real and reel life differs, director can turn unfortunate events like breakup in friendship, getting caught while stealing paper etc. into a good ending.

Fourth Year:

No one was Rancho, Raju or Farhan. Everyone sat in placement and became Infosion, TCS geek, or LNT labourer :).