Main Aik Engineer Hun - Ye Kya Ho Raha Hai?

The longer I stare at my computer screen the faster my thoughts skip my mind. So I’ll just start writing and if, by some miracle, you find yourself stuck to the screen, reading something neither of us has any idea about, till the end, then we’ll mutually agree that time is not wasted.

Speaking of time, I find myself in both excess and shortage of it. The reason, ironically, is the same for both: Lack of a job.

You turn on the computer, find an ad for an open position and check the deadline. If the deadline falls on the day you see the ad, you simply accept it as fate and move forward. If the deadline falls a week or a month later, then you can sit back and enjoy till the last day, when you actually apply. Then you wait. The time you wait stretches from days to weeks to months, and in some rare cases, to a year. If you don’t get a call for an interview or a preliminary test at all, you accept it as fate and move forward. If you do get called, you get really excited but then again wait for the last day to get prepared. As a consequence you don’t do very well in the test and don’t get through, accept it as fate and move forward. If, by some miracle, you get called you get super excited and make a pact with yourself to prepare hard. You really do prepare hard. But the interview that’s supposed to land you in a job, makes you go through a series of questions: Was I drunk? Did I ever go to an engineering college? Did I make a fool of myself (again)? But a couple of episodes of FRIENDS and a good meal helps you heal, you accept it as fate and move forward.

At this point, you open Chrome to check what the people of Facebook have to say about their lives. Apparently every single person you know digitally, has either found a job, or got engaged, or won an international competition, or saved the world from an alien attack, or has turned iron into gold (to say the very least). This makes you go through another series of questions: Am I wasting my time? Should I deactivate my Facebook account? Why is my laptop’s battery not working properly?

At this point you hear these words: “Ehtisham, andey-bread ley aae?” A trip to the shop at the end of the street to get eggs and bread lightens your head. But on your way back you confront the neighbors’ dog. He is sitting in front of your door, panting, staring at you. You take a detour to kill some time and hope for the dog to clear the path. When you finally reach home and hand over the bought items to your mother, you decide to get some rest after a long day of facing the world. So you sleep to get ready for another such day.