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The Techie Syndrome

Conjeevaram J. Nandakumar

    I have thought about this exasperating equivocal anecdote, with all its insinuating plausibility, over and over again, but it is impossible to determine, what the nature of it was, or who the sufferer by it was. I feel compelled to append explanatory notes about this person, who has been driven to the verge of lunacy, by his own acts and convictions and I am therefore impelled upon not to assign any name to this character, but only to be addressed as gentleman.
    Right from his childhood this gentleman’s dream was to become an engineer and had a queer perception that amongst the multitudes of population only trifling numbers will have the ambition and competence to become an engineer. Although he was one of the most restless creatures in the world, he certainly had the perseverance and knowledge to accomplish his ambition. With great difficulty, and in the most dismal manner and every possible manifestation of endurance and under the most lamentable circumstances of his family he finally graduated himself as an engineer.
    Having accomplished his mission he never enjoyed a moment to thank the sole benefactor, his earthly father, and having no present need of him, frivolously fell in love, and married in haste. With the same great haste got a favourable opportunity in USA, bade his family for good and settled there with no time to reflect upon the past.
    Ever since he landed on the western hemisphere of the globe a dreadful change had come over his disposition and attitude. He became a strong opinionated person by his own rules. His grandiose and superiority complex of being a techie by no means lessened, but has only increased his antipathy towards the people of nontechnical professions and started to consider them as, déclassé and cheesy specious.
    One fine summer morning, as the gentleman was lounging, very much at his ease, over a luxurious settee checking his mails, a faint brightness gradually appeared on his face by the sight of an invitation from Alumni Association College of Engineering Guindy for the celebration of 94^th alumni day. He was greatly delighted by the prospects of meeting his old engineering friends and to be at their service. His jubilant reaction was priceless, as if he had personally been invited for the presidential dinner at the White House. With his rapturous delight he called his wife and showed the invitation to her, who temperamentally and ideologically, fit hand in glove with her husband, with no great disparity between them in point of years and poise.
    An impetuous decision was jointly made to embark on the journey to their native land. The prospect of meeting a particular old friend Alex lifted their spirits up. Even comrading with their classmates, were done in a circumspect manner, about intimating only with men of high business, very wealthy and of great importance and made a point always of standing well in their esteem, strictly in the business point of view alone. Alex once had the honour and privilege of being on intimate terms with them on those contingencies.
    Upon landing, the gentleman invited his uncle, to witness the grandiosity of the alumni get-together, who responded in the most zealous manner possible, at the drop of a hat, with a well-trained sense of canine loyalty.
    The get-together of alumni of engineers resounded with the noise of feasting and revelry. If anything could have added to the interest of this agreeable scene, it would have been the remarkable fact of this gentleman’s indulgence, revelled in his happy existence, elated with the rapturous scene, with all brightness and splendour with different segment of engineers. He first drank to the health of the civil, and then a toast with the mechanical, and then took a draught with the draughtsman and later with the electrical and electronics and then finally imbibed one for the road with the whole clan of techies again, but nowhere could he find his intimate friend Alex.
    The next morning the gentleman was not in a condition to rise after the unwonted dissipation of the previous night revelry and appeared to labour under depression. To lift his drooping spirits up he decided to watch the previous night’s recorded get-together on the television once again. In that ever unsatisfied quest of his entertaining powers he called upon his family members to watch and gave them verbal description of each activity. As he watched with a certain ambitious triumph in his face pointing out to the participants in the get-together screamed with great deal of excitement. The macro head with the micro brain gentleman ecstatically vociferated, ‘All engineers, all engineers’, which even a child could have guessed that an exclusive gathering of engineers obviously ought to be engineers or even a fool could have said that. This kind of behaviour, which is under a very curious and remarkable circumstance, showing that even an erudite person such as this gentleman, acted upon a sudden and powerful impulse, may be afflicted with a momentary forgetfulness of personal dignity.
    His wife proposed a visit to their friend Alex’s house with the address which she could manage to obtain from some of her old companions on the previous night. It sounded a better idea to comply with and they disposed to go after breakfast.
    According to the address and guided by the GPS navigational app they found themselves arriving at a commercial complex. They resumed their journey; and certainly the prospect before them was by no means encouraging. They lost the hope of seeing or hearing about their friend’s whereabouts and decided in their own mind, that the best thing to do would be to ask around at the small petty shop sellers by his name and occupation, as engineer Alex, to seek further information. One of the fruit vendors, an old timer afforded most useful and valuable information that their family had long been disposed their property and relocated to an unknown destination. The old fellow paused for a few minutes, apparently struggling with his feelings of emotion in a manner, which implied that he knew very well about the whereabouts of his friend and told them that he had seen him frequently at the work site couple of blocks away down the road. They thanked him for the information and proceeded through a narrow lane and arrived at the destination.
    They were standing on rough stones and gravel at a place what seemed to be a constructing site of a flyover. There were workers around in various attitudes of consternation and anxiety. The gentleman and his wife were ushered in to a makeshift office of the contractor, who has been recruiting engineers for his projects. There at one end of the room against the wall on polished leather chair, sat an elegantly clad personage about his father’s age, who upon seeing them greeted,
    ‘Yes, what can I do for you?’
    The gentleman after formerly introducing himself and his wife announced the purpose of his visit. ‘We come from USA and are looking for our college mate engineer Alex’s house, replied the gentleman with a lofty tone and an air of superiority.
    ‘Engineer Alex! Why, I presume only the doctors are addressed by their title before their names?’ remonstrated the contractor.
    ‘Why we engineers are in no way trifling to doctors.’
    ‘Perhaps so, but you see sir, probably at your grandfather’s time if you had asked for an engineer’s house without mentioning his name anyone would have been more than happy to oblige you to personally escort you to his home without questioning further, for there was only one engineer for the whole town. The same question if asked during your father’s time they would have asked you to specify his name for there were quite a handful of engineers to be identified by their names, and would have provided you with some details, but would have left you in endurance with the burden of carrying out the most intense search on your own, but now you see today all those shack dwellers under the bridge are engineers. There is no home for them. The work and the living place are one and the same for them. Right from the stone heaver to the gravel mixer is an engineer. Not everybody is fortunate enough to get an overseas job. The plight of the engineers here in our country is deplorable. There is no more charm in claiming yourself an engineer today.’
    Although the gentleman evidently had a wrangling tendency he was decidedly snubbed and put down on his ego by this contractor and seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue his point further the gentleman withdrew and said,
    ‘Thank you sir for your time,’ and started to leave.
    By the time the sky had been lowering and dark and it started to rain heavily. After they departed the contractor throwing himself back in his chair with folded arms still buried in his thoughts suddenly rose and came out.
    The rain and hail pattered against his office sign board which rattled with the wind. He gazed at the signboard with an air of abstraction through the falling droplets of rain and smiled gravely with a kind of grotesque pity at the name of his company that he named after, in memory of his deceased engineer son, who had been infected with the same vainglory and hypocrisy and took them to his grave, which the father never wanted his visitors to know about it. The signboard proclaimed the worst repute of the profligate son and remained ever there to haunt the memories of the poor father.

ALEX BUILDERS & ENGINEERING.
Consultant & Contractors.

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