Pachacamac I: The Making of the Indian Engineer
It is believed, in the chiropteran enthusiast community, that a colony of bats, when presented with the prospect of leaving the confines of their cave, most often choose to turn left on exiting the cave. Whether this is the result of instinct, centrifugal force, or intense pre-exit deliberation is unclear, but the lack of a well understood reason does not make the phenomenon any less interesting.
A similar phenomenon is exhibited by the mass of indian students that graduate from our schools every year, the bulk of whom almost always veer left and join the nearest (or sometimes farthest) engineering college.
In the year before the millennial, 5 such students of assorted characteristics joined this exodus and entered a world where logic and reason were mere theoretical concepts, never to be applied. As in the case of the bats, their reasons for choosing this direction are unknown. When quizzed about their motivation to become engineers, pollsters were greeted with blank looks and inconclusive answers such as “Dad said so”, “Don't know, couldn't think of anything else, and seemed like a safe option” and “Fuck off man, I have a paper today!”
The decision making capacity of eighteen year olds, newly initiated into the notion of adulthood, is limited to selecting which movie they want to watch when they bunk class. Making life changing choices, like selecting a career, can often lead to extraordinarily bad decisions that are regretted many times over. Pachacamac is the story of some extraordinarily bad decisions.
In subsequent posts, I will try to reveal some of these bad choices, and their consequences. Four (or five) years of sustained mental gymnastics. Stay tuned.
Before the next revolving year is through
On the eve of my 27th birthday, I look around at the collection of papers, text books and piles of photocopied notes and wonder what I've gotten myself into. Wonder how far I've really come from the days of being surrounded by sundry piles of semi-digested information in the dark days beyond the gap of mankhurd.
Then I remember that unlike then, a lot of this stuff (not all of it, let's be honest) actually makes sense to me. More importantly, I actually care! Who would have thought a once-engineer who has failed more subjects than he can (or wants to) remember, would be taking the first daunting steps to a PhD in public policy just a few years later. Who could have imagined that I, who had failed statistics twice, would actually grow to love it so much that I would be able to teach it to others.
It has been a pretty long journey since the days of Pachacamac. And while I haven't achieved a lot of things I thought I wanted to, I've done a lot of different, perhaps better things. I remember listening to this song ten years ago (feels a bit scary saying that, 'ten years ago'), and wondering how things would turn out.
'So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty, though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true.
There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty, before the last revolving year is through' Though well past the twenty year mark, in retrospect, the years and dreams have turned out pretty well.
And the eyes in his head see the world spinning round...
Ever so often, you think about pausing your life to consider the direction you're taking. Think about what you do, and why you do it. Contemplate change, and potential paths you may take to an imagined future. At such times, a break, a lull in the routine of life can be helpful to help you organise your thoughts and think about where you want to take your life.
Of course, I had no such luxury.
After my
first epiphany almost four years ago , which helped me decide that I wanted to quit engineering and venture into the relatively unknown (to me at the time) field of development (a word I have since struggled hard to define), earlier this year I came to another decision making point in my life.
For the past year and a half, I have been working as a research assistant at the
World Resources Institute. Since most of you have never heard of the World Resources Institute, I should start off by saying we are one of the many 'think-tanks' that dot the DC landscape, though we differentiate ourselves by referring to our institute as a 'think-and-do' tank, placing our work somewhere in between The Urban Institute and Greenpeace.
If none of that made any sense, don't worry about it. I probably don't understand anything about your job either.
I had always planned to pursue my PhD after working for a while, and I sent in my applications last winter, hoping to get into a decent public policy program starting Fall 2009. I was accepted at two universities, and was faced with the decision to either pursue my PhD as a full time student at a new university, or to do it part time at George Washington University, where I got my Masters degree, while continuing to work at WRI. On the one hand was a new school, new advisors and all the uncertainty of going back to being a full time student. On the other hand was the thought of returning to a familiar environment while continuing to work at a job I enjoyed, but perhaps being completely overwhelmed by the combination of a full time job with a PhD program.
But instead of taking some time to slow down and think about it, I was planning a three week trip to Bangladesh, India and Cambodia to study companies that provide clean energy solutions for people in rural areas. So after some deliberation, mainly on my daily commute, I decided to return to GWU and pursue my PhD part time, while keeping my job. I sent in the form confirming my acceptance, and proceeded to apply for visas, look up hotels and figure out my travel arrangements. It was only as I sat at Dulles airport, waiting to board my flight to Dhaka, that I began to wonder if I had made the right decision, and ask myself why I had made the decision I did.
The weeks that followed both allayed and heightened my concerns, but I returned to DC believing I had made the right choice.
The next few years should be interesting. Intense, but hopefully, interesting too.
Anyway, I plan to update this blog a bit (let's not over commit now) more regularly... starting off with some reflections from my trip.
More updates eventually.
What it means to be a child
To play outdoors when everyone else is inside. To embrace the weather rather than try to escape it. To play cricket in the burning sun, football in the pouring rain, to dive into a bank of snow.
Blogarithm 2.Ohh?
Trying again
From the dust and the detritus. From the scattered remnants of a once almost blogger. Along the uncertain, infrequent path again.
Why did you stop, you might ask. Was there nothing to write about? The adoring public has long left, only the mechanized spam-bots named Alex that leave comments like this
"Tutt and the driver flonase of the stage.. The Colonel was approached--until his statementnexium that he should consider any attempt to overcome his professional secrecy a personal reflection withheld further advances.." remain.I cannot quite put my finger on the reasons for the more than two year hiatus except to point out that I'm inherently and inordinately lazy. The kind of laziness that the two-toed sloth (not the three-toed variety, which are generally faster moving) aspires to on a Sunday afternoon. That, and a commitment to procrastination that could probably lead me to great heights in government.
It's not that I didn't want to write, or didn't have things to write about. I just... didn't. That's all.
But that changes today!
Or perhaps tomorrow. We'll see. (yawn)
if you don't know where you're going.... any road will take you there....
Years in review... why now?
because I just drank a gallon of coffee and cannot find any more episodes of the Daily Show on Youtube.
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Sometime last year.... I,
Became an engineer.
Went on a rural survey in Fatehabad, Haryana.
Had a life-changing experience. Fortunately, also took pictures.
Drank chai. Lots of it.
Wrote reports.
Applied to Graduate programs in Public Policy, Urban Studies and Regional Planning
Went to Leh-Kargil.
Sat in a stall in Leh, drinking namkeen chai with three excellent people.
Ate wild apples sitting by a mountain stream on top of a mountain in Kargil.
Again, took more pictures.
Read about being accepted to GWU in a cybercafe in Kargil town.
Listened to the Beatles
Wrote more reports.
Returned to Bombay in December for three weeks.
Walked along Marine Drive.
Ate Salli-Chicken + Pav at Cafe Military in Fort.
Ate Bombay Duck at Grant House Restaurant near Crawford Market.
Said goodbyes.
Celebrated New Years in Bombay.
Said more goodbyes.
This year... I,
Packed my life into two suitcases, leaving behind a comic book collection and a murky sea.
Whittled my existence to a mattress and whatever would fit in those two suitcases.
Lived in the library.
Read about Politics, Economics and Statistics.
Wrote about Outsourcing, Globalization, New growth theory, Urbanization and the Digital Divide.
Worked at The University Police Department. The GW Center for the Study of Globalization. The National Council for Public Private Partnerships.
Met old friends, once lost to foreign shores.
Listened to the Beatles (some things never change)
Found a road... quite deserted and and without streetlamps... but promising nonetheless...
Walked.
mutter
I miss....
red double decker buses
the gentle stench of rotting fish
noise
black and yellow taxi cabs
crows cawing in the afternoon
jhinga fry
a cool beer at mondies
walking around a deserted fort area on a sunday
running for a train
stuffing the last corner piece of an overstuffed 'sendweech' slathered with butter, chutney and ketchup into my mouth
the madness beyond mankhurd
kulfi
the creaking seats at sterling and movie tickets printed on the paper thinner than the wings of a
makkhihearing
suttey paishe kaada instead of 'exact change only please'
that salty taste when you lick your lips after walking along marine drive in the monsoon
