Crore+ salaries, golden eggs and such things

 

The Telegraph reported on July 26 that the director of IIT Kharagpur, addressing a meeting of parents in the context of repeated cases of suicide among students, has requested them not to put unbearable expectational pressure of a material sort on their wards - forget about Rs. 1-crore starting salary packages, he has urged them, face reality. See the above picture.

I am glad that he has pointed out the case of Sundar Pichai, and added that Pichai studied metallurgical engineering at IIT (followed by an MBA, which does NOT call for a prior engineering degree). I should like to stress here that Pichai's case well illustrates the fact that to become the CEO of a giant IT company, you do not need even a degree in IT or computer science. Digest that, ignorant parents and starry-eyed youngsters!

I only wish the learned director had spoken out loudly about how so many colleges (and plus-two level tutors/cram shops) are duping both parents and children with fairy tales about those multi-crore salary packages. They are just pie in the sky, folks, and, even if they exist, your chances of landing one of them are about just as good as winning a major lottery or becoming an IPL team captain. Look at your parents' earnings, kids, even after working for 20 to 30 years. Also ask them how many people they know who get salaries of crores a year (and have your parents actually seen the pay-slips of those who claim they do, or are they gullible enough to believe everyone who claims they do?). Then learn to live with the drab, humble reality. Otherwise, the bodies are simply going to pile up higher, as rosy dreams are shattered by the time you have spent one or two years in college, and you have found out how hard it is to live and work and thrive in the real world, and your  'mental health' cannot bear the terrible shock of the sudden let-down after so many years of fantasizing.

Ironic that I, who have warned thousands of kids merely against such suicidal daydreaming, have managed to earn a reputation in my town as the tutor who is a bad man because he urges his students against such greed and stupidity, whether it is theirs or their parents'! But of course, my karma is being recorded at a far higher level than the public's, and I am content.

Right now, you can find the news item if you click on this link, but I don't know how long they maintain them in their archives.