Vision of Life; by Sanjay: Engineering, Engineer's Day & Engineers!

15th September, Engineer’s Day!

"An Engineer is not the one who has a degree or diploma of some engineering branch; he or she is the one who takes lead when see a problem around & applies his knowledge to solve it & gives his everything to make this world a better place & yet be ready to get blamed by the world that how he messed up the things & made them worst!!"...

Happy Engineer's Day to every such fool who is an Engineer by Heart & not by just Brain!!...

This is what I wrote on my college Whatsap group today morning! That way the Whatsap has made far bigger impact on my genre (who are in their 40-50 plus) than the younger ones! As Whatasp don’t need signing or opening account, the information or opinions you share isn’t public except on groups which you have willingly joined (mostly) & its way easier to operate than Insta or FB (in my opinion) & you can be very much in touch one on one also with anybody you want to be! And Whatsap has made many old friendships revived in good way as it’s directly linked with your cell phone numbers & our engineering batch also isn’t exception! Though most of the times you receive same post (read forward) from many groups & especially due to free internet data (thanks Geo) more & more people are hooked to Whatsapp & its forwarding game! Rather even on our engg college groups mostly its forwards & that too we all know what’s main subject of such forwards when its engineers! But it’s the Whatsap only which has made many people realize that there are so many Days to celebrate in a year & one of them is Engineer’s Day!

Well, I am frank that I too realized Engineer’s Day when I opened up my Whatsap today morning & loads of images of a man with Pagadi (a traditional head gear) with words of wisdom on it started popping up, sorry Dr Vishvesharayya, this is the only day on which most people see your snap or read your words of wisdom about engineering which actually are applicable for every profession! And as usual next day all so called engineers & non-engineers deletes all such posts & media to free up the memory of cell phone & speaking of memory of the brain, well, most of us has deleted it long back! With due respect to my all engineer friends, who gets very upset or angry or even violent when rubbed them on their professional achievements or capacities, be honest with ourselves & ask, how many of us are doing the job of an engineer which Dr Vishvesharayya has referred to! And be honest, as some of you may be doing their bit but collectively what we are seeing around, does that makes you proud? See around the buildings we build, right from planning (yes it’s not just architect’s job) which is done keeping in mind just sale factor & not the utility factor to seepage & leakage to collapsing of compound walls (yes, buildings too) & violating all sanctioning norms (many of engineers only are responsible for that), does all such buildings displays our engineering skills? Then the road conditions of our Smart City, we can’t make roads which stands to one rainy season & every year we have to read the news papers displaying failure of our engineering skills with photographs of water logging & pot holes, isn’t it? All the time our rain water storm drains chokes or just miss their job of collecting rain water & makes the surrounding flood. Then we succumb to non-engineers (read mostly elected members) & make entire stretch of open lands concertize , which kills bio-diversity of the city as well reduces water absorbing capacity of the earth & we still call ourselves engineers! We built structures in rivers & streams by changing their course, we dump our construction waste in natural water bodies & lakes, damaging bio-system & causing not just floods but wiping out entire eco-system & we are proud about being engineers! We cut trees to make roads, Metro, railways, canals & we never bother to plant new trees leave apart making them grow & we still call our creations engineering marvels! And those of us which are superior & has capacity of inventing something better, we flew out of country (H1B1) than to make this country better, by sharing or using our knowledge here & we call it Greater Good of the World or bigger opportunity to use our knowledge & still we celebrate Engineer’s Day from abroad with Sir Vishvesharayya’s photo! The list is endless of our glamour & glory filled stories as under the name of engineer we are nothing but just making our own personal foundation strong (read wealth)! And here millions of people who are not fortunate to get any education not just engineering looks after us , we the engineers, in the hope that these so called bright minds will make their life a shade better, I wonder, how many of us actually deserve to be called as an engineer!

Well, it hurts, reading above words, isn’t it? But sorry this is fact & it won’t change even if you don’t read it or laugh at it! Indeed there are some good engineers left & they are doing their bit here in this very country & we can see their creations in the form of Koyana Dam or Sea Link Bridge or Konkan Railway Track but in a country of our size & population a list of few structures won’t be sufficient where naked truth is three fourth of the country-men don’t have potable water to drink or majority people don’t have a proper home to reside! Things like electricity to drainage line to schools to medical facilities are a distant dream for many! We need every one who calls himself or herself as an engineer to give hundred percent towards the job at hand & job at doesn’t mean just do what has been told to you & get you fee or salary but job at hand is understand what you role is by being an engineer! It doesn’t mean just to follow orders & do your job by the formulas or process you have read in the book. Being a good engineer means you look out for the problems around & without waiting for the order from someone up, address the problem & solve it & go out looking for next problem. A better engineer is the one who not just solves the problem but guides others for not making them face the same problem again! And the best engineer is the one who anticipates the problem in advance & stops it before the problem comes in existence! Now tell me frds, you fall in which above category of engineers?

And fault is not of the present engineers, fault is our generation engineer’s, as we were blessed to have teachers which were engineers at heart first & then they were teachers! They have understood engineering far better than many & yet they preferred to remain teachers than using their engineering knowledge for upgrading their own life style! Unfortunately most of us are too busy in making only our selves live as a better (read prospered) engineer than making other engineers understand what we have been taught! And I don’t mean that leave our respective jobs & take on teaching; we can teach other young engineers from our projects, from our working methods, from forming systems of production as all these are like open school of engineering for many associated with it! But of-late if we see around then what we find is the senior engineers themselves are busy in making money which is prime criteria of success here & in that process we forget the engineering itself!

Sad part is even after so many years of his death yet we have just one figure at whom we can look with respect as an engineer, yes I am referring to Sir Vishvesharayya as look around & see how many such faces comes to your mind when its Engineer’s Day! Indeed we have now our age Vishvesharryya, in names like Dr Kailasavadivoo Wasan of ISRO, whose dedication to the job at hand is such that he cried when Vikram couldn’t land on the moon in final stages! Frds, it’s those tears for the duty or job is what makes you a real engineer & not just the degree or the post! On this background may it be a private job or govt, how many such examples we have who dedicates everything for the job or project they are working on as an engineer? I think somewhere we are forgetting the very meaning or concept of being an engineer or the branch of knowledge i.e. engineering!

Engineering is not just science or some formulas but it’s an attitude towards life which teaches you to analyze everything logically & then only accept; its application of knowledge to solve the problems & make things better & not just knowledge gathering! An engineer is the one who adopts this attitude of life & live by it always & not just for the sake of some fat salary job! An engineer applies his knowledge dedicatedly for the job at hand at the same time keep his mind (read brain) open to absorb new knowledge which will make his ability to deal with the problems in better way! And then look at the lot we have today which calls themselves an engineer, right from wrong attitude to lack of discipline to having ego of that degree which refrains you from learning something new even from the fitter or welder or mason on the site, everything is there but engineering!

High time for educational institutes (read so called engg colleges) to the on field engineers who themselves are like living engineering class, everyone must introspect on this day, are we doing honor to the degree we have been proudly flashing around? Or else this day will just remain on whatsap forwards, which even Sir Vishvesharyya will regret for becoming ambassador of the profession, we call engineering!

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

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https://youtu.be/g3lx1Nq7pBs

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http://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2018/08/pune-city-no-1.html