Most of us lack purpose…until the day we are asked to write a certain 'Statement of Purpose' which by the way is insisted by every academic institution abroad in order to make sure that the prosective student is genuinely interested in the program…Poor things….What do they know about the plight of Ramu - the wonder boy ( Ramu the wonder boy is a purely fictitious character and any resemblence to any living person is deliberately coincidental) who was practically shunned by the society until he boarded that flight to the US…Everything in Ramu's life was predetermined…He would enrol in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry stream in intermediate, join an Engineering college , write GRE, do an MS abroad, marry his maternal cousin and both of them would happily watch 'Kyon Ki Saas bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi' for the rest of their lives.
I happened to read a one such Ramu's (actual name withheld because he happens to have a brainless good looking sister ) SOP in the recent past.My Gawd....I was truly at a loss of words.Sidney Sheldon couldn’t have been more vivid in her description of you know what.Though I cant remember the exact phrase, it started off with an anecdote of why our man decided to pursue Electronics Engineering ( me adding fuel to fire to make it more spicy..;).When our man was verry smaaall, the tubelight in his house suddenly went off. Pappa couldn’t do anything about it, mamma couldn’t do anything and for that matter even the friendly and concerned uncle in the neighbourhood couldn’t do anything about it.Then our man weilded a Panoply , pulled a wire here, pressed the choke there, meddled with the starter and lo! The tubelight started working.Neigbouring uncle remarked the boy had potential to become an Engineer.THAT day…Yes THAT day our boy decided that he would become an Electronics Engineer and bring Roshni to hundreds of unhappy couples in the nation…Stupid fellow
Another Ramu had something to offer which was equally spicy .Something to the effect of being interested in pursuing research on Chaos theory because his life was in complete chaos.This guy's younger brother had lots of toys and he(the younger brother) was extremely fond of one particular toy namely, the Mini Army tank.The big bro was asked to repair it but UNFORTUNATELY he couldn’t.The younger one ended up crying the whole day.This episode inspired our man to become a Mechanical Engineer!!!!!. I'm sure the professor who looked at his SOP would have had convulsions and must have fallen on his knees feeble, helpless and devastated. Anecdotes such as these were coupled with adjectives like 'application, aspiration, determination, direction, mission and expectation...The chap sounded like one of those old hindi film heros who promised to pluck stars from the skies for their respective beloveds.(my translation of 'Aasmaan se taare tod ke laaongaa' :D )..Pataa nahee woh log itnee lambee lambee kyon phekte the? Those heroines would have been happy even if the heros had told them something more practical…like 'Gulab jamoon laoonga' or say 'Masala dosa laaongaa'...
