Induction into society

My son did his Engineering from PESIT in Bangalore. At the time of his admission my daughter who was already working in Bangalore took care of his admission so I did not attend his induction. Another parent, a friend of ours, whose son also joined the same college came back and reported the proceedings.

The Director of the Institute, Mr. Jawahar Doraiswamy got on to the pulpit to address the freshmen and their parents. He began with the benefits of acquiring technical education and went on to say how the society would merit by the services of the young men who had opted for an engineering career. Finally he asked the new entrants a question.

“ How many of you would want to take up teaching as a career?”

Not a single hand went up.

“ I can understand” he continued, “ Now listen carefully to what I have to say.”

Pointing out to the front seats occupied by faculty members he said, “ Here are gentlemen who have opted to teach you when they could have easily taken up lucrative jobs which would have fetched them much more money. They are those that have the responsibility of shaping your lives. They have undertaken a job that none of you want to do. I, therefore, expect you to treat them with the respect that they deserve.”

Needless to say that his concluding words received a thunderous applause.

I missed the opportunity of meeting a fine gentleman.

My son spent four years in the college. He, like others of his age, got in and out of trouble. Some of those episodes may find a place in this blog in future. I asked him once what he thought of his college. He replied -

“ There were times when I wondered what I was doing in this place, this is worse than school. But now I feel that if I have a son I would want to put him here and nowhere else.”

Thank you PESIT and Mr. J. Doraiswamy for making my son a fine human being.