Fiction & Reality

TO BE OR NOT TO BE : A TRUE ENGINEER


Engineers are supposed to be the creators, inventors & designers of new and unthinkable wonders. An engineer is held with so much awe and admiration that the ones aspiring to “change the world “ are now thinking that only engineers can do it(at least I had something of that sort in my mind when I joined VNIT). If a plausible, near accurate picture had to be painted to describe the race for grabbing a good engineering seat, the image would resemble an active fish market in the streets of Kolkata.

But is it really worth all the trouble?

This question rang a sonorous bell in my mind when I faced a predicament, which initially seemed trivial, but eventually dragged me into the deep cavern of self doubt.
The incident marked my endeavor to unravel the secret of abstract knowledge. (Or something like that)

After appearing for my second semester examination in the college my holidays at home were harmonious and luxurious till I turned on the television.

The Idiot box was clearly in a state of disarray, for, the display resembled a paper run over by millions of ants. Obviously it was not a show in discovery channel because the sound coming from the set was disturbing and by any stretch of imagination or recognition I couldn’t dare to compare the screeching sounds with the sounds produced by the speech of a human, harried by a sickly throat problem, trying to explain what the million ants were up to. Even if the ants wanted to, they couldn’t produce such noise. To make sure that the ants were not capable of doing so, I switched over to the next channel and then the next and I had not rested until I had checked all the channels. All the channels had ants running all over the screen. Using my primitive knowledge in the area of television electronics I wisely surmised that even if ants did manage to enter the interiors of a TV, they would die an instant death. After making sure that the signal from the operator was not corrupted I diagnosed the problem successfully. There was a problem with the television!!!

Amazed with the fact that I was able to diagnose the problem accurately using my engineering and observational skills I geared up for tackling it professionally.
I went to my elder brother and presented the predicament in a genuine fashion. The fact that he was an electronics engineer came to my mind during my investigation and finding an opportunity to avail his invaluable professional services I went to him asking for the solution.
Clearly disturbed from the state of delirium he frowned at me acknowledging the disturbance. The description of the events that followed should be carefully noted as they describe the deliberate gestures and movements, carefully practiced and perfected, by an engineer before staging a deception.

He got up nonchalantly, wore his glasses, blinked like a damsel in distress and gave a look filled with an immiscible and antonymic mix of utter brilliance and sheer ignorance. Then he cleared his throat as if to deliver a statement which could force the world into accepting world peace. But nothing of that sort happened and he muttered helplessly, yet airily”I’m aware of the principles involved in its working and construction but I don’t know how the TV works “.

I was slightly taken aback but, needless to say, I felt enormously enlightened after hearing an excuse which could be used liberally when faced with a similar situation because even if anyone tried to highlight our incompetence we could always blame the ‘nasty old system’.

However, the task remained unaccomplished. Who should do it? No, not the electrician, a man with limited knowledge of the complex systems, he may repair the set but my quest for knowledge would be obstructed. An electrician works only according to set procedures taught to him mechanically by ITI (industrial training institute). To showcase the superiority of an engineer over a mere technician, I had to take the thing in my own hands (a screwdriver that is). Armed with the screwdriver in one hand and the power of inquisitiveness in the other, I walked like a gladiator ready to salvage some pride for my clan(engineers), after all it was only a mere television.

After opening the cabinet, I could only stare at the inconceivable collection of slabs with colorful small elements struck to them. As I searched for an hour to find at least some element of familiarity in this chaotic assembly of strange boards and elements, my patience was running away. Finally, my eye caught a board where I could recognize three elements placed on it. Even though I was skeptical about their condition (good or bad) I had no choice, other parts of the board were alien to me. I was like a man searching for treasure somewhere else just because the place where it lay buried had no light.

The elements were the most elementary elements of an electrical circuit- the capacitor, the resistor and the inductor. I just had to replace one of them.
The elimination process I adopted was painstakingly primitive, but nevertheless fundamental tools have carved a way for man’s success. The elimination process was one of those sequences we adopted before starting a game of hide and seek – “inky, pinky ponky, father had a donkey,…………….”. After two rounds of elimination the target was spotted. The resistor had to be replaced.
After soldering the new resistor (which I purchased from the market) in place of the original resistor I closed the cabinet and turned on the television. The picture was crystal clear.

(Rajnikant was performing his famous anti-gravity stunts. Hardly believable stunts I accept, but it satisfies me that at least someone can break the unquestionable and slavery inducing laws of physics, which dragged us through sleepless nights)

I was overjoyed to see that my totally outrageous fluke had struck gold. I then started to ponder over the secret behind the innocuous looking sequence of elimination, it now dawned upon me, that this was not a simple elimination algorithm but, a far more complex transcendental function based on complex laws of probability and permutations, which nobody had, till today, discovered. I was perhaps the first one to make this breakthrough.
I could see the red carpets unfurled before me, The Bharat Ratna badge pinned onto my shirt, my parents unable to control their tears of joy, the physics Nobel was being presented to me, for I had discovered the function which could solve disturbances in electronic circuits. The crowd was cheering me noisily, more noise, but the sound was much hashed, very corrupted. Wait! It wasn’t the type of noise a crowd could generate; it was …… coming from the TV!!

The sound was worse than before, obviously the resistor wasn’t bad. So I had been wrong about the stupid elimination sequence after all, to hell with inky pinky ponky. All my thoughts about the ceremony painfully vanished from my mind. Then with much deliberation I replaced the capacitor.

I sat down with my eyes closed and fingers crossed, and then turned on the TV. I waited with drawn breath. The noise had vanished and instead I could hear the voice of a human Delighted and ready to reconsider the elimination sequence from the human angle, that is, attributing the mistake to me and not the function, I opened my eyes to see ants running over the screen again. Now, the display was cocked! But the sound was perfect!

First, when I replaced the resistor with a new one the picture was perfect but the sound was repulsive, now when I replace the capacitor with a new one, the picture turns bad but the sound system works perfectly. Then definitely, if I replaced the inductor, everything would be normal. Using this common sense, I replaced the inductor with a new one.
Now, surprisingly both went bad. The picture was bad and the sound was intolerably hashed and corrupted.

After employing a series of permutations to replace each component, and getting equally ghastly and varied results I finally decided to end this cat and mouse game by calling in the real professional- the electrician.

He walked in with an air of nonchalance, as if he were performing a routine job. He saw all the elements strewn around and then without saying a word he opened the cabinet and resoldered the old components. Then he switched it on. The picture was still bad and the sound worse than before. Before I could say a word, he tapped the TV on its head lightly. The TV flickered for a second and then gave a clear image along with proper sound.
I could do nothing but gape at the TV for the next few minutes. He said that the problem was so minor that he would not embarrass himself by asking for fees…………….!!

How much do we know ‘practically’?

The same question applies to every stream in engineering. Before I end, I should turn my attention to my own stream – Meta (Metallurgy and Material Science Engineering).

When my friend’s grandpa asked him about his stream he was dumbstruck. Why? He himself had never thought about it. To hide his face he muttered a series of ‘errs’ and ‘umps’, kept beating around the bush, flaunted words like nanotechnology and smart materials and finally told his grandpa that he was too old and senile to understand all these technical things.
His grandfather nodded his head cynically and replied aptly “Son, you are right. I didn’t understand a bit of what you said. Perhaps that’s what engineering is about, understanding nothing.”

It has been observed that young minds join engineering colleges expecting a job to land on their laps as soon as they reach their final year in college. Many are also aware that a company seldom asks you questions from engineering curricula in their written exams or interviews (I am targeting IT giants), so any person having mediocre knowledge in computer programming can end up in an IT company. Why then, should we take the pains to study for engineering? Do we earnestly study the subject? Are we interested in it?

The story has no moral but it certainly raises the question we all fear to acknowledge.
The ultimate question.

Are we true engineers?

By
Narayanan






















Disclaimer

The skit has no bearing with any real life incident. The characters are doubtlessly fictional in nature too. The stories mentioned in this skit are meant to be treated as truly fictional. Any other claims made by readers should not be aired without proof, ignoring which; the offender is liable to prosecution. (Ha-ha. A nice way to ensure copyrights isn’t it?)

By
Narayanan


A Dedication
This is dedicated to my grandpa, my brother and people who struggled hard to become true scientists in their own fields. Also I present this skit as a birthday gift to my grandpa Dr. Appadurai.
This skit was also greatly inspired by our great President Dr. Abdul Kalam, who has contributed heavily to the society using his scientific prowess.


I also thank my mom and dad and for raising me in an objective environment.
And I would specially like to mention my granny here because she tirelessly encourages me to learn good English. And without my family this would not have been possible

By
Narayanan