Just to elaborate a bit further, I can remember pretty distinctly that way back in the nineties, after having read a couple odd Ancient Indian History books, I had wanted to be an archaeologist when I grew up (even though I could not spell the word correctly at that time!), go scouting around the country looking for some lost remnants of the Indus Valley Civilization, and even go on to decipher the Brahmi script! I had even managed to find a confidante in a classmate who had wanted to be an Egyptologist (just imagine!).
Call it the "Jurassic Park Effect", but alongside this, I had even wished to become a palaeontologist. And of course, it goes without saying, that the fact that it would have been an impossible plan to carry out, never struck my young and enthusiastic mind at all.
A few years down the line, I was really moved by the plight of our people and decided that it was the need of the hour that I should assume the responsibilities of the office of the Prime Minister of India! I took it as given, that no one else was really fit enough for the job.
On becoming a bit more mature, I got really inspired by one of teachers, Mrs. Shelly Walia, and wanted to appear for and crack the Civil Services Examination in order to become an IAS officer. God knows that I had, sort of, vowed to rid this society of all its resident evils and eradicate corruption completely (kids ARE like that, you know).
But, then, as it turned out, I studied to become an engineer.
It's not that I don't like being an engineer. No, that's not exactly the point. I took the decision to pursue engineering out of my own volition after some really serious and "rational" thinking, and what's more, I've really loved each and every moment of my days as an Engineering Student. Besides, I do not regret having taken it up as a course in life. And I've not done this half-heartedly. I've put in all my efforts into it.
But even then, sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I would have taken up one of my "dreams" a bit more seriously. I wonder what life would have been like as an archaeologist, or palaeontologist or how things would have been like as a budding politician!
I guess I would never know.
But truly speaking, even now it's not all that bad, you know, being an engineer..
