Engineering is a
word which was difficult for me to pronounce correctly even when I was
in college. It is a word which has made my contemplation of yellow all
the more vibrant (thanks to the safety helmets), a word which has
“engine”, “ring” and five different alphabets in it as some lifeless
facebook philosophers would post and a word which is impossible for 98%
of the readers to translate in Urdu (kindly don’t waste your time trying
google translator; I have wasted mine). But most importantly, it is a
word which now indisputably defines me.
It’s human psyche to associate all kinds of things with the governing factor or some principal characteristic of an entity regardless of their positivity and negativity. For example if you know a certain house is haunted, it won’t be surprising to hear a pudgy man complaining in a terrifying tone about how his belt disappeared from his belly while he took a walk in its vicinity after consuming a sumptuous meal, failing to consume the simple fact that it’s still there. Only his eyes cannot behold the underside of his tank-like tummy while he stands straight. Or you can consider an all thankful lady who harps about the miraculous disappearance of plaque from her teeth exactly one week after she went to Daata Sab’s shrine, naively overlooking the truth that she was made to brush frequently by her dentist who could no longer brave her yellowish golden smile (plz don't tell me we call THIS the million dollar smile). Similarly, following is a short account of 2 memorable occasions where people associated the word “Engineering” with anything they could think of at that moment.
“You won’t stop coming here, will you?” the poultry shop boy jokingly hit me.
“Nooop! Now shut up and gather me some siriyaan. My cats are famished and if don’t take these, I’ll knock YOUR siri off” I retorted back.
I have been doing this since I was in class 9 (not retorting for heaven’s sake, feeding my cats!!).
“btw dude, what do u do? I mean besides feeding ur cats with these gratis siriyaan and threatening me for mine, what do u do for a living?” the shop boy solemnly inquired.
“I am an engineer buddy” I proudly enunciated being certain of getting more siriyaan from this day forth.
“hahaha, go bluff someone else dude. Engineers don’t come every day around 1pm asking for siriyaan and wearing t-shirts over loose jaded trousers. They work in offices and travel by car. Tell me honestly now, what do u do?”
“I am an engineer u moron, I am doing M.Sc, I mean I am studying further that’s why I come. And engineers also have the right to roam casually in in any dress they desire and they don’t need a car to fetch siriyaan. Now seal your lips and give me what I have come for or should I bring an HEC attested degree for it? :@”
I ran over him in exasperation.
“haha, be patient amigo, I was just asking. Here you go, are these enough?”
Bored by the quiet and modest ambience of the wedding hall, I decided to go and have a peek at the ladies section. Placing my knot at the right coordinates (oppa engineering style) and shinning my boots with the chair cloth (stop denouncing me, I know you do this too) I surreptitiously started walking away from my father. After about 60 seconds of Qabaacha walk and ensuring that my father was still busy confabulating on the same table with the same uncle who was raving about his pretty daughter-in-law, I darted for the entrance fissure hoping to find my father, HIS pretty daughter in law so that he could give that random uncle a shut up reply.
It wasn’t long before a natural smile broke out. I had found her; mene jisay abhi abhi dekha hai, kon hai wo anjani? Usay jitna dekhoon utna sochun kya usay main keh doon….pretty lady!! (woman aurton k liye hota hai). But wait a second, why was she wearing the heaviest makeup? Why the heaviest and costliest attire? And above all, why was she sitting sequestered on the stage? What wrong this beautiful soul had committed to deserve such ostracism? My heart skipped a beat but I couldn’t step forward for I was Jacob; the only wolf in the congregation of vampires. All I could do was either "howl" or "stare at my bella". Before I could decide which option was more politic, some words from 2 ladies fell like stark lightening on my already numbed senses.
“Look at the bride on stage. How pretty does she look no”
“Oh yeah, I bet the groom is going to drool at her, hehe”
So she was the bride. So my world crashed before I could live in it. So my father had to continue listening to the blabber of that uncle. Sigh!!
“Btw she’s soo lucky. I heard the groom is an engineer. He recently graduated”
So the groom is an engineer. My bella is at least getting wedded to someone from my respectable profession. The natural smile returned. *RESPITE*
“Oh Puhleez! Hes just an engineer, not a doctor or lawyer or businessman for that matter. Whatever he has done, hes still a 20-25000 guy, huh!”
I could feel the blood rush hitting the gong in my brain. “So that’s why she tagged him with Bees pachis hazar wala banda?? So that’s why she said he’s going to drool? Because he is an engineer?? What does she freaking mean by that? We are engineers, not fruit sellers!!” I jabbered, riding a surge of disappointment and anger. Failing to stuff her mouth with a geela naan, I had no option but to return to my father and avoid any other reality check. However there was one thing which I was compelled to think.
“How much does a famous fruit seller earn?”
It’s human psyche to associate all kinds of things with the governing factor or some principal characteristic of an entity regardless of their positivity and negativity. For example if you know a certain house is haunted, it won’t be surprising to hear a pudgy man complaining in a terrifying tone about how his belt disappeared from his belly while he took a walk in its vicinity after consuming a sumptuous meal, failing to consume the simple fact that it’s still there. Only his eyes cannot behold the underside of his tank-like tummy while he stands straight. Or you can consider an all thankful lady who harps about the miraculous disappearance of plaque from her teeth exactly one week after she went to Daata Sab’s shrine, naively overlooking the truth that she was made to brush frequently by her dentist who could no longer brave her yellowish golden smile (plz don't tell me we call THIS the million dollar smile). Similarly, following is a short account of 2 memorable occasions where people associated the word “Engineering” with anything they could think of at that moment.
“You won’t stop coming here, will you?” the poultry shop boy jokingly hit me.
“Nooop! Now shut up and gather me some siriyaan. My cats are famished and if don’t take these, I’ll knock YOUR siri off” I retorted back.
I have been doing this since I was in class 9 (not retorting for heaven’s sake, feeding my cats!!).
“btw dude, what do u do? I mean besides feeding ur cats with these gratis siriyaan and threatening me for mine, what do u do for a living?” the shop boy solemnly inquired.
“I am an engineer buddy” I proudly enunciated being certain of getting more siriyaan from this day forth.
“hahaha, go bluff someone else dude. Engineers don’t come every day around 1pm asking for siriyaan and wearing t-shirts over loose jaded trousers. They work in offices and travel by car. Tell me honestly now, what do u do?”
“I am an engineer u moron, I am doing M.Sc, I mean I am studying further that’s why I come. And engineers also have the right to roam casually in in any dress they desire and they don’t need a car to fetch siriyaan. Now seal your lips and give me what I have come for or should I bring an HEC attested degree for it? :@”
I ran over him in exasperation.
“haha, be patient amigo, I was just asking. Here you go, are these enough?”
Bored by the quiet and modest ambience of the wedding hall, I decided to go and have a peek at the ladies section. Placing my knot at the right coordinates (oppa engineering style) and shinning my boots with the chair cloth (stop denouncing me, I know you do this too) I surreptitiously started walking away from my father. After about 60 seconds of Qabaacha walk and ensuring that my father was still busy confabulating on the same table with the same uncle who was raving about his pretty daughter-in-law, I darted for the entrance fissure hoping to find my father, HIS pretty daughter in law so that he could give that random uncle a shut up reply.
It wasn’t long before a natural smile broke out. I had found her; mene jisay abhi abhi dekha hai, kon hai wo anjani? Usay jitna dekhoon utna sochun kya usay main keh doon….pretty lady!! (woman aurton k liye hota hai). But wait a second, why was she wearing the heaviest makeup? Why the heaviest and costliest attire? And above all, why was she sitting sequestered on the stage? What wrong this beautiful soul had committed to deserve such ostracism? My heart skipped a beat but I couldn’t step forward for I was Jacob; the only wolf in the congregation of vampires. All I could do was either "howl" or "stare at my bella". Before I could decide which option was more politic, some words from 2 ladies fell like stark lightening on my already numbed senses.
“Look at the bride on stage. How pretty does she look no”
“Oh yeah, I bet the groom is going to drool at her, hehe”
So she was the bride. So my world crashed before I could live in it. So my father had to continue listening to the blabber of that uncle. Sigh!!
“Btw she’s soo lucky. I heard the groom is an engineer. He recently graduated”
So the groom is an engineer. My bella is at least getting wedded to someone from my respectable profession. The natural smile returned. *RESPITE*
“Oh Puhleez! Hes just an engineer, not a doctor or lawyer or businessman for that matter. Whatever he has done, hes still a 20-25000 guy, huh!”
I could feel the blood rush hitting the gong in my brain. “So that’s why she tagged him with Bees pachis hazar wala banda?? So that’s why she said he’s going to drool? Because he is an engineer?? What does she freaking mean by that? We are engineers, not fruit sellers!!” I jabbered, riding a surge of disappointment and anger. Failing to stuff her mouth with a geela naan, I had no option but to return to my father and avoid any other reality check. However there was one thing which I was compelled to think.
“How much does a famous fruit seller earn?”
