Suicidal Engineering

People say, “When Engineers play, the world sees a revolutionary way”. I concur. Most of you would agree. But how do these Engineers play. A burning question, do they even play?

Like every day as we assemble in the Mausi (read: tea-shop), even today we did. But unlike other days when our center of discussion were ranging in a very narrow bandwidth of Start-ups to internships. Today we had a sad story in store. A dear friend of ours had left us forever. Although none of us had seen him earlier, neither of us could trace who he was. But he was someone within our family our very own NIT family. For the administration, he did commit suicide. And the best here I can do, I mourn for the departed soul. May his soul rest in peace!

Does the story end here? It has been 29 months since I came into engineering and this was the 6^th condolence meeting I was in. I was sobbing while in the condolence. How these suicides and deaths have become the run-of-the-mill for the engineering institutes. After all where is the flaw? The administration obviously can’t evade, it is to be blamed. But is it only the administration which is to be blamed? Aren’t we also responsible to an extent? People jump from the fifth floor just because they failed in love. Can you imagine more stupid reason for a suicide? Agreed, I’m not the right person to comment on love and valentine. But suicide isn’t sublime.

And strikingly, more reputed the institute, more suicide cases buzz. Students are stressed with the curriculum unreasonably. And the ones who attempt suicide are a subset of the union of the two mutually exclusive sets.

Set 1:

Students who aren’t endowed with extra ordinary intelligence. (I personally believe, talent can never be nurtured, it is always god-gifted) This type of students are either in Engineering because, the government treats them as their son-in-law and reserves seats for them or because they couldn’t think of any other career option after class XII and iteratively tried for Engineering exam and made it somehow after ‘n’ number of attempts.

Set 2:

Students who are endowed with intelligence but they don’t have faith in their intelligence. Rather they prefer working hard which brings them among the elite in terms of GPA. Even if you burn the midnight oil in Engineering, you can’t be satisfied being second to any XYZ. And if it becomes repetitive the bad consequences start popping. Had they kept faith on their intelligence and would have done smart work instead of working hard, they would have never been in the elite group but would have done fairly well and been above average.

There is another set of students, the Set 3:

These students are in engineering not because they are super talented but because they are lucky to have affluent fathers. Any engineering college can be their dream alma mater they just need to throw in some cash. This set of students unlike the previous two, doesn’t bother about GPA and so is rarely stressed. But a fair part of this set goes insane, when it comes to love and valentine. And a few cases of suicide do come out of this flock, but the reasons are different, for their father’s would have thought, Engineering was not their cup of tea. These students would have done miracles in the domains they loved.

Fortunately, IITs and NITs are devoid of such set 3 students. Had they been not, maybe I would have attended few more condolence meetings.

WAKE UP PARENTS !

Don’t be so obsessed with Engineering. Stop saying to your children, “ Beta Engineering Entrance me to baith hi jana”. There is no dearth of lucrative career options. Just put yourselves in your children’s shoes and see the world. The world would look better and brighter.

image courtesy: greenbd.info

^ Mine the Business Administration ^

No astonishments !! No Surprises !!

Its not a conclusion of just one day. In fact its a cumulative result of the one month trauma given to me during my industrial training. Added to this is the greed of lustrous MBA career that has mined this blog from my heart.
Its not that I’m discouraging my fellow batch mates here in Mining Engineering. But being my self a mining engineering student I have got full liberty to criticise Mining. Friends I assure you that I won’t be biased in making the comparison and if you find some anomaly anywhere down from here , the comment section awaits your fervent comment.

So, Lets play the game,


You will start early at 21 or 22 and so you will be at a more reputed ( when I say repute, its social repute not monetary repute) place at the instant when an MBA grad will just start.



You will have your job secured as most of the Mining companies are in Public Sector both in India and abroad. (Engineers for Indian PSU’s are like their son in laws, they will die but can’t throw you out.)


You will be having an option to switch your career to almost any field of your choice at any point of time if you are an MBA grad.


You will be forced to work in remotest possible region if you are an Mining Engineer unless you are that lucky to be the 1 billionth child of India. (I myself had to travel 15 kms to Jamshedpur when I was in Narwapahar Uranium Mine Township to get a CCD for a coffee and believe me we all travelled 250 kms to Kolkata to get a ‘(K)entucky (F)ried (C)hicken’ for chicken burger .)


You will have to study even after you get a reputed job as a Mining Engineer as you will be asked to compete for the FIRST CLASS MINE MANAGER’s CERTIFICATE and before that you will be required to qualify the LAMP HANDLING CERTIFICATE too. So, GPA will be running behind to kill you there also.



As a Mining Engineer you will be paid with a very high salary as you will be in very high demand as total number of Mining Engineers passing out every year from colleges of good repute is merely 230. (2,50,000 software engineers pass out every year in our country)



If you work in a PSU you will be credited for your contacts in top offices not for the work you do. (Its a harsh reality). And if you go for any private sector company in Mining they will pay you in scraps.


Every Mining Engineer has to deal directly with the fourth grade employees which means a gradual downfall in your personality. You will have to shout at them as they are generally mulish and refrain doing any task assigned to them.


Mining Engineers and their families are generally deprived of literally and culturally high environment. Their world becomes confined to their township and they won’t have much topics to discuss. They have very limited social life as most of the townships are located far from the cities.

Mining Engineers are very prone to health hazards like pneumoconiosis and leukaemia arising out of inhalation of coal dusts in case of coal mining and due to radioactivity of Uranium in case of Uranium Mining.

Moreover if you are a mining engineer you will have to continue with that till you say good bye. The best thing you can do is to enter the R&D or be a professor or enter any mining consultancy but be sure you won’t be able to quit Mining field completely.

If you want to go for higher studies and you plan to get admitted into some international university ,then you will have to go for Geology and Earth Sciences.(Although the competition for Mining Engineers is easier as compared to other branches of Engineering).

And the last and the foremost thing for we bachelors that Mining Engineers are not made for Girls. GIRLS and MINING ENGINEERS are like ‘oasis’ and the ‘iceberg’.


P.S: All the views about Mining has been compiled after author’s personal stay in a township of Uranium Mine at Narwapahar, Jamshedpur for a month.

The "6.88" ! !

6.88 and a steep fall of 0.33 in my Cumulative Grade Point Average this semester. GPA of 7.67 means, I am no longer eligible to hold an Honours certificate.
Before I commence , I wish

Happy New Year to all of you.!!

May this New Year brings success and fun to all of you.

With this post I will no longer sugar-coat my posts and no longer will I deliberately try to make a post just for the sake of making a post. I will be much straight forward now onwards, may be in the process it may hurt someone. But I can’t help it. You have to take it that way because I will be presenting my sole thoughts. And if I don’t, that means I am a fake portrait. So, better let the world get acquainted with reality. It has been since long that I decided to be this way. Its neither a post break – up consequence nor a New year resolution; although both makes a sense here !

I had been in a traumatic one month of my life which my friend Maharshi had already blogged very nicely. To go to his blog Click here. He had shared that bitter experience along with me.

Some of the very nice snaps that he clicked over there are featured here. Have a look on them. Don't get confused by the dates on the snaps we forgot to set the correct date on the cam. All the pics have been taken in the month of december in and around Narwapahar (Jamshedpur, Jharkhand)

Kudos ! to his photography skills ! !

Now I have concluded of what I will be opting to go for after my engineering. I will go for an MBA. May be this came at a wrong time because right now I’m “The 6.88 guy” and I require a semester to prove myself. I have never gone for mugging a content just for the sake of a good GPA but probably this time I will have to mend my ideology and will have to walk with class - notes in the hostel corridor on examination times.

It has been just two days that I’m back from my hellish Industrial training which fully motivated me for MBA and I was fully determined to begin my CAT preparation right from the day 1 but alas ! I was given my grade sheet and I require to pay attention to my engineering career and GPA at least for coming one semester. Once I rectify the loss of this semester I will go for my CAT preparation for sure probably from 5^th sem.