Guy/Girl's plight??

On request by anandable.......this post is with reference to the comment made by anandable on my previous post.

First & foremost, my previous post was in reference to another post by an author called Nishant. I limited myself to the situation posed by Nishant (though I did assume certain things here and there), now what anandable has asked me to think about is a diametrically opposite situation, some assumptions of which are as follows:

• The girl is a small town, not so independant girl.
• The guy is willing to marry the girl, and so are the guy's parents willing to accept her.
• The girl's parents are not in favor of this marraige, on account of caste & status issues.

Before I begin to analyse the various variables that I have mentioned in my previous posts, I will talk about some inherent loopholes of these assumptions & also my limitations in understanding these assumptions.
I think the first & foremost loophole in the assumption is that while in the previous post both parties in love looked like matured & independant people, here atleast one party is not. Previously, we were talking about people who were capable of taking decisions by themselves, and also assess the merits & shortcomings of those decsions. In case of a non-independant girl such levels of maturity/independence cannot be expected, due to the sheer lack of exposure that dependency creates. Also in the previous posts both parties being the decision takers, the assumption was that they have a fair understanding of the fact that the accountability of the success or failure of the relationship lies on their shoulders. However in this case where the girl is not so independant, I am not too sure if she will be matured enought to shoulder the reponsibility/accountability of her relationship in the future. What i mean is that if god foresaken tomorow some mishap occurs in their relationship or in their lives, is the 'not so independant' girl, capable of handling it? The answer is perhaps no, and that is what brings me to the third assumption: the girl's parents' opposition to this proposal is not so unfair after all, except that the pretext that they are using to oppose it (i.e. caste & status) is probably not the best explainations of why they should be rejecting the alliance.

Another loophole of the assumption, and this time it is also a limitation of my understanding of small town girls. Arent small town girls the introvert kind of females, who rarely talk to guys, and probably are very well aware of their family & the social environments' condescending disapprovals of romantic reltionships?? Then how come they fall in love, I mean love can happen to anyone...thats fine!! but how does the mechanism of love unfold in such cases. I mean to ask, she atleast has to have talked to the guy a few times to really fall in love or after falling in love...or wait a min!!...are u talking about the love that she experiences by virtue of sight ...love at first sight!! If thats the kind of love u are talking about then believe me thats not love...its infactuation...or in my langauage 'stupidity'...and all i will recommend is...it is not even worth a fight!! So chup chaap se listen to what the parents say...

I know that it is a harsh suggestion for someone in love...but all i mean to say is that the assessment of whether something is worth a fight is very important...cupid may strike in several forms- love at first sight, crushes, friendship, sex...and many more....but the assessment of whether the form of cupid can be extrapolated to the sacred knot has to be a very prudent decision. And this process of extrapolation shouldnot be confusd with synonymising: love & marraige are not synonomous. They are two different things, if what you call 'love' materialises into marraige then you are damn lucky!!...but if it doesnt it is an important lesson of life, and you should 'by heart' it and move on in life!! However, I do believe that love is an integral subset of married life but that doesnt mean 'marraige = love' or vice versa.

Coming to the point of parents of the girl opposing the girl's marraige. In case of a non-independant girl, parents have to be very instrumental in chosing her partner, because the age in which a girl may have fallen in love could have been very impressionable, and love by its very nature makes someone very silo in their thinking. Owing to this, assessing the entire merit of the proposal keeping in view factors that will play an imporatnat role from time to time in life, becomes imperative for the parents. On judging these factors, some of which may revolve around the financial or social status of the guy's family, if the parents oppose the proposal...i dont think there is anything wrong with it.

Now, one would argue that I was harsh on the guy's parents opposing a proposal on the basis of the same factors, while I am supporting the girl's parents. I have logic to support that too, the reason being, once married the girl moves from her home to the guy's home. Assuming that the financial or social status of the guy's family is not equivalent to the girl's then there are chances that the girl may have to live in lack of resources which she was used to, to the extent of taking for granted in her own family. This may be the cause of discontentment for the girl, and she maynot be able to cope with the lack of resources. In such cases the girl's family may have to come to her rescue to make her life comfortable. From the perspective of both families this may not be a very desirable situation, the girl's family maynot want to own up the burden of their daughter's comfort after they have married her off, and even if they do, the maynot appreciate his wife's family helping out, because then it proves his inefficacy to give his family a comfortable living. Here the assumption is that the financial status of the guy's family is lower than the girl's family. However, in cases vice versa, it maynot be so difficult after all...its always easy for anyone to move from a lower starta of living into higher one, rather than do the vice versa. So what I am saying is, that parents rejecting a proposal on account of status is purely justified, however on the basis of caste....i dont know...i am not too sure...actually casteism is a very sensitive issue...and its an issue of mindset...though i myself believe that i should marry someone from my caste...when i ask myself 'why?', i dont having any rationale to support my belief...this is one terrain wherein i refrain from commenting...i dont know why...

Talking of the guy's parents, I think they are on the same page as their son, simply owing to the fact that they know their son is an independent entity with personal desires, and they respect it just as the girl's parents in the previous post must have. So they are willing to accept the girl, believing that their son has taken a matured decision, and that he has a fair understanding of the fact that the accountability of that decision rests in his own hands.

That brings me to the point of drawing an analogy of the proposed situation with the one in my pevious post. Just as the affected parties in the previous case were three, here too they are three. One is the girl, the girl's parents & the guy( i eliminate the guy's parents angle because their viewpoint is in sync with the son's)

Now lets look at the girl's perspective first:

I think she suffers from exactly the same problem which the guy suffered from in the previous post. She just lost track of the reality of her background & didnt think it was important to judge the guy's background, when she pursued her love.

Of course, she is a small town, not so independant girl so standing up and fighting for somethng she really wants is not something we can expect of her ( anyways, i am not even sure if she has a strong conviction on whether she really wants the guy, i mean on the basis of love on first sight no one can be absolutely convinced).

Also I would want to introduce another angle to the girl's perspective, which applies only to girls. Girls, who dont have an independant standing of their own, often equate their standing in society to their beauty, their physical appearance. And at any point in time, a patron of this beauty induces in the girl a feeling of self-worth. The feeling of self-worth is important for every individual, and for an unmarried non-independant girl this can be derived from the appreciation that a lover offers. This source of self-worth looks all important till the time the girl is not put through to think about marraige, once married she has her husband to derive this feeling from. So the incentive of a girl to fight her parents to get married to a lover, is lower than what it would be for a guy.

Now from the girls' parents perspective:

Of course peer pressure is important here too, with the girl's peer group getting married to NRIs and IASs which other girls' parents have chosen for them, this girls' parents dont want to be left behind in the race by hitching their daughter with someone whose primary vocation seems to be falling in love (thats what it looks like to the parents atleast!!).

Thier ego ofcourse takes a hit, they dont want to confess that they werent keeping a close eye on the movements & heart slips of their daughter, that would raise a finger on their upbringing scheme.

Parent's insecurity in this case comes from whatI mentioned earlier, the fact that they would have to marry the girl off in a family which maynot have as much resources or social recognition as theirs.

From the guy's perspective, I guess its the same as was in the girl's case in the previous post. I mean he just has to cope up with the feeling of despair & loss...i guess thats how life is ... unfair, but simply 'life'......

Iin the conventional love stories like this one its the guy who takes the brunt...and in modern ones like the ones i mentioned previously its the girl...

Though I think I have done a better job of explaining the perspective of the not so independant girl than I had thought...in case of any aberrations, do grant me the limitation of not knowing what small town girls are all about or rather not knowing how it could feel like being a non-independant girl. The smallest towns which I have experienced in my life have been Ludhiana, Kanpur & Patna ( and I am sure they dont even qualify as towns...all three were cities, I believe), so my perspective on small town girls is a little silo-ed. Though i did have interaction with a few small town girls in my engg days, but they were all far too soaked in inferiority complex, that most of their claims of love & boyfriends looked like desperate attempts to be on par with the metro-girls than actually an explaination of their true personality.

I hope i came close to looking at the problem with the perspecive that anandable expected, in case not...comments & castigations are most welcome....

Girls' Plight

http://read-nishant.blogspot.com/2008/02/guys-plight.html

The author of the above article i thought has raised a very critical issue, which is constantly biting our hypocrytic, yet developing society.

I would like to scrutinize the issue that he has mentioned a little further.


In the above said situation the affected/involved parties are three in number; and it is very important to understand the psychology & repercussions of the situation on each of the three.

First is the guy, whom the above author has very conclusively adjudged as the one suffering the plight. Though I honestly believe that the other two parties are the ones that are more touched by the situation: the girl(Payal in this case) & the parents of the guy.

Looking at the guy's situation first & foremost:

Love vs. Reality: This guys seems to be someone who has probably missed out on the reality of a 'conservative family background', when he fell in love with Payal & began to go around with her. Well if conservatism is not something that can fully explain this (considering that is developing India), then i have another terminology that can be more explicable of what the guy failed to assess and i.e. his 'egoistic parents' ( I will elaborate on this when I come to the parents' part of this analysis). So point number one is that guys who end up in situations like this one, probably lose track of their reality or maybe misjudge it. One typical problem that I have noticed about guys in relationships is that they often lack foresight, they are never able to foresee what they are getting into or where they shall be heading towards in the medium-term or may be long-term( like in this case). When they fall in love, they are soaked solely in love, not realising that apart from loving their sweetheart they need to multitask and assess that they may never be able to fructify the situation into anything meaningful altogether. This problem is very rampant with the male gender, and with the live for moment attitude of the newer generation this attitude is quite often seen with the fairer sex too. But only if the newer generation turns heed to the old virtues of planning & preparing can situations of the like be avoided.

Strength of love vs. Weakness of the individual: Guys in our modern society are facing a decline in the rate of growth of their strength. While on the other hand, girls are showing a rapid growth rate in terms of developing strength. You know what I mean, I mean that though women in today's time arent as strong in upholding their views as men are, they are showing a rapid increase in the growth rate of ability to stand up for things. And inspite of the head start that our patriarchical society has given men on expressing & upholding their views, women are catching up soon. Also attributed to this rapid growth rate in strength development of women, the mood in the female sect is upbeat, while for men the declining growth rate suggests a mood of recession owing to which a guys are often not able to gather the courage to fight out for things they strongly believe they want. So even though the guy has the heart to fall in love, he may lack the heart to fight out for it. Or so to say, when it is you sweetheart on one hand and your beloved parents on the other. Its always easy to say 'sorry' to the sweetheart & break her heart, than rebel against parents & hurt them for a life time. The results of situations like this often go to prove that adage, 'blood is thicker than water'. And it takes lot of strength & attitude to fight what old adages suggest with reference to societal norms. And of course, a community(the male gender sect) which is weakening day by day & is going through the low of the recession, expecting an exhibition of strength of the order of rebelling against parents would be like asking for too much.

As a result of his misjudgement of getting into a relationship which could never fructify, & his inability to gather the strength to fight it out, he may never be able to fulfill his desire to marry the woman he desires to.

Now coming to the parents of the guy:

Peer pressure: We in India often talk about the ever increasing population & the competition it induces amonst individuals in the society. This competition takes various facets, from creating a healthy competition to a mere rat-race; what is interesting to see here is that while we talk about our generation bearing the brunt of this competition; our previous generation doesnt remain untouched. Parenthood as an arena of competition is as much an arena as is any JEE or CAT. While a lot of parents transalate their children's success in these arena to success of their parenthood, the highlight that emerges is that Indian Parents in todays times are under immense pressure to prove to their peers how sincerely & intently they have reared their kids. In the process of trying to be the best amongst peer group, parents dont hesitate from dictating their children into chosing a line of career, or an institution of education, or the eventual job & sometimes altogether the path of career. With female children getting equal encouragement from their backgrounds, the competition in parents' peer group has rocketed several folds. As a result of all this, many parents just dont want to risk their child's fture by putting it in his/her own hands. Also the child following parents' directions in terms of what he does in life makes the parents look good in society- it just proves that the child has good sanskaram to follow his/her parents' will. The risk involved with children taking their own decision combined with the unsankared syndrome motivates parents to reject what the child proposes he desires to do.

Parental Ego: To all this, I would also like to add the angle of what i call the 'egoistic parent'. In the case mentioned by the author above, had the guy's mother accepted the guy's idea of marrying Payal, what is the answer that she would have given Mrs. Tiwari who offered the proposal of a gem-like girl. Ofcourse she would have to tell her that her son has chosen someone on his own. Now to do that a lot of parents would have to take a hit on their ego. confessing that your son is taking his own decision means that you arent playing enough role in your son's life. Which eventually transalates into the credit of his successes also going solely to him. No matter how much of a 'developing nation' we may be, our society hasnt attained the maturity to accept that the child's success can be attributed solely to him/her!!

Insecurity: I dont know about both parents, but mothers in general like to have control of their son. Infact not only mothers, women in general like t have control of men in their life. And easiest prey to such a control is your own son. Losing control on your son is very hard to cope up for a woman. This is also another reason why a mother may never permit her son to choose a girl of his choice; because popular beliefs suggest that a girl of the guy's choice usually gets an upperhand in his priority of attention scheme. Now thats quite a popular belief of our society, and believe me these popular beliefs though extremely baseless, are so subtly ingrained in us(and especially mothers) that any deviation from them is like inviting too much risk, which mothers are just not willing to take.

As a result of the peer pressure in parents' arena, parents' ego & the mothers' insecurities; the parents blackmail the son into chosing between the desired sweetheart & themselves. The choice is obvious, because after all 'blood is thicker than water'. And it takes a lot to shake the societal foundations of this normative adage.

Now coming to Payal & the real plight: ( now I am going to make some huge assumptions, because very little info on Payal has been provided by the author in the excerpt)

Payal kind of girls of course belong to very progressive families. Families that encourage their daughters to study, encourage them to stand at par with the society, and empower them to take both big & small decisions in their life ( I am assuming all that because Payal has reached the level of working in the same office as the guy himself). For a girl like Payal, it is not very hard to fructify her desire of marrying the guys she wants to, primarily because just as the family has given her the liberty to chose her career & pursue it, they would do the same for her life-partner.

Now, look at the irony of the situation, the one who has the liberty to take decisons liberally, is afterall the puppet of the situation. I mean, what can she do, she is helpless, she fell in love with someone she thought loved her (which is not a bad assumption to make given that the guy after all thought of taking the proposal to his parents). So she was right there & then she lands into an awkward situation wherein she is being dictated by the guys misjudgement & weakness, the parents' ego & insecurity. If it were her own parents, she could have probably explained to them. But she cant explain, argue or fight with someone else's parents. Parents who arent hers & probably wont even consider any explainations from her because she is both a aforeign party & the party with the highest stake( hence likely to have a biased viewpoint to what is more a game of egos & weaknesses than LOVE).
The result is a situation of helplessness & despair, a feeling of 'how terribly wrong a decision did I take in the first place?"( when I got involved with this guy).

So while the author of the above post talks about the guy's plight, I think the real sufferer is the girl in this situation. And though we live in a developing society, these are some perils of living in an age which talks more of flux than development. I think our generation will have to bear the brunt of it...and hopefully our coming generations will reap the fruits of our hard times.

I know I have made several assumptions in the above article...the data that was available in the author's post was very little to build on the kind of conclusions that I have...my apologies to the author incase the conclusions I have drawn are not in sync with the point he was trying to make...but i have added a little more to the situation in order to understand the dynamics of such situations and the plausible causes & motivations of such situations in this developing society of ours.
I know a lot of things that I have spoken about are extremely contraversial, and maynot even apply to the society as a whole, but my judgement is based on a small sample of a segment which has seen itself in situations like the one mentioned by the author.

'Race' treachery ki....

If a student of English language attempting to improve his vocablury, wanted to understand the meaning of the word 'treachery', he/she needn't resolve to the rapidex english speaking course...i have a more entertaining option for him/her...watch the movie 'Race' and u would know what the word exactly means. All possible variations of the meaning of the word are well depicted, and when u come out of the theatre whether or not you know what 'race' means u surely would have an excellent understanding of the word 'treachery'. However, the constraint is, to learn just one word of the English lanaguage it isnt really a good idea to watch a 2 hr 45 min long movie. So my recommendation is that only advanced level students of the language should resort to the modus operandi that i am suggesting...for the rest of you, the one line feedback of the movie from my end is that "the meaning of the word 'race' does take a backseat in the characters' attempt to cheat each other".
The movie is sure not a flop, owing to the sheer excitement that so much of treason builds up. But the complexity that it eventually conjures only leaves one thanking God that inspite of the rampant availability of cheats, there are atleast some people in life whom u can trust. Not that I myself believe that everybody whom u meet in life is a cheat, but the rampant cheating in the movie did leave me thinking that if life is to any degree in sync with what has been shown, boy...then we surely live in "the big bad world".
Also the movie has left me a little concerned about an industry which for times immemorial has been not significantly but surely indispensibly associated with lives of people world over. And that is the 'button' manufacturing industry. I must say the dress designers have made good use of buttons in clothings of all kinds in the movie; what disturbs me however is that they were all left unbuttoned. Now that could have two reasons, one is that the unbuttoned buttons are EITHER symptoms of a fashion that may soon lead to the extinction of the all-essential button altogether OR while the dress designers did a contract with the button-manufacturers, they laid-off the the tailor who was suppose to create the slots for the buttons. Either ways, the use of buttons for 'show', both in women & men's ensemble does tell me that while the people working in the button manufacturing industry could be at the risk of losing their jobs in the future, those working as slot creators( that genre of tailors) are already feeling the heat of recession (i.e. if there is one in the economy). All in all, Saif Ali Khan's unbuttoned shirt was a cool sight i thought, and i am sure the ladies' unbuttoned whatever ...was a cool sight for the opposite sex.
Talking of the movie as a whole, it was nice entertainment; while every person is entitled for their opinion on how good or bad it was...i would just say that the songs & the choreography of the same was out n out paisa vasool. Infact in order to make full use of my theatre ticket i made sure i sat through the song after the movie got over, and that in itself i thought justified why i paid the Rs. 130 in the first place.
All in all, watching beautiful people (all the characters in the movie looked great) whether in reel life or real life, is always good entertainment. And if you get a primer on English language vocabulary along with entertainment...who would mind it!!

airs about AIR

<http://helloji.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/iit-insufferable-indian-tribe/>
please read the above article before proceeding to read my post....

This post has invited a lot of clamor in recent times. I had fun reading it & I had even more fun reading the comments( which are now 250+). All that has been said & argued upon has had immense entertainment value, and for those of you who didnt have the time to read all comments, you can atleast read the 26th one. Its my personal favorite!!

This post is in reference to the above post, and is directed to the author of the post that has created a clamor. To my readers, I would just like to mention that I donot intend to give cheap publicity to IITians. What I shall be writing is a personal opinion based on first-hand experience that I have had with this tribe which to some in good/bad( i am not too sure!!) humor appears to be insufferable.

Even before I begin this post I would like to tell u that I am not an IITian( here I go...so even non-iitians can begin their introduction in the unique style that u mentioned was attributed only to IITians). To elaborate a little more on that, let me tell u, i am not an IITian by virtue of never having cleared the JEE. I mean, I lived in IIT for two years( by virtue of being a post-graduate student therein), however, I would be over-rating myself if I were to call myself an IITian. The AIR that you very condescendingly mentioned in your post, has a lot to do with why IITians have so much airs about themselves (now I know that the AIR is indeed a pun...and rightly so!!). And since I didnt have an AIR, i refrain from having the air to call myself an IITian.


Now you would be wondering why someone who didnt even have an AIR is trying to defend members of this insufferable tribe ;) (just trying to imitate your language & talk in the same tone, but afsos thats just for show, I dont think the tribe deserves such a derogratory epithet... anyway....) . Reason for my coming to their defense is that even I was a JEE aspirant at one point of time, and my maiden attempt at it told me how difficult it is to get an AIR. I respect those who make it through, and appreicate those who atleast think they can make it there & i dont mind if they take a year or two off to do so. I never took any off, reason being simple, I never thought I had the substance, the intellect to make it there! And that is enough to judge how a true IITian is not only different from anyone else in terms of his intellectual ability but also his ability to believe that he is intellectually different. And to accentuate the point that I lacked the intellectual capability to make it there, even when I did get to an IIT, my JMET rank was worse than most campus residents' JEE ranks!!


To elaborate a little more on the AIR point: In my course of two years at IIT, I met several people who had beheld this pun-like feature (the AIR), and believe me each of them had more to them than just what it took to get that AIR. And when I say "more to them", I mean they had so much substance that you begin to question what exactly was the curriculum for JEE, that brought them in. To me IIT was an experience of meeting people whose substance could be attributed to a range of things, from their sheer simplicity of background to the way they conducted themselves. To illustrate this point I will mention a guy who if ever passed by a gorgeous girl would fail to get a second look, but if he displayed his public speaking to her, she would have no choice but drool over him. I know many would argue that such seemless public speakers are plenty in number, even outside IIT, then whats so special about him?...well, all I would say is to manage the diverse reaction from not getting a second look to having a girl drool over you...well thats something!! I met guys who came from backgrounds wherein they studied in lanterns (only the light of a lantern and not even a fan to respite the scorching heat) for the JEE; and if their deprivation of having not had ample air at the time of their preparation, reflects in the airs they have about their AIR... boy, its more deserved than anything!! The guy with the most dehaati Hindi having the most fluent English speaking girl of the campus as his girlfriend...boy, that happened at IIT!!


Ok, so that brings me to the sensitive issue of IITians stuttering and stammering in front of girls...to that I would say, your allegation is fair to some extent, but then again its baseless. Because had you been aware of the skewed ratios at IIT( they say it is as low as 1:20, and to top it all, even the fauna in my IIT consisted of more peacocks than peahens ;)), and the effects that it can have on guys in such an environment you wouldn't have made that comment. Vaise looking at your levels of inferiority complex, had you lived in that kind of an environment, you would begin to stammer & stutter even in front of a bitch (and there I mean...the female dog, the bitch!!). Once again, my hats-off to IITians, they can atleast fluently tell the bitches "I am an IITian!!"


As can be made out from the post, you sure are someone who never went to IIT, and dont even have the slightest inkling of what life in IIT is all about. I am glad that inspite of not being an IITian I will refrain from the juvenile felony that you have committed(to write a post which has very little backing in terms of facts or experiences both first-hand or vicarious). If you would have atleast been through that lifestyle, even as a non-IITian( as did I), you wouldn't have dared to write this. And I think largely the reason why you committed this crime and I didnt is...because I watched star wars at IIT...and I bet you didnt!!... ;) :)))


I think you were on the right track when you said that the real estate prices for an area which produces an IITian goes up. I am not too sure about the real estate prices but sure that non-IITians like me who live around IITians for two years can see their value go up in terms of taking the liberty to admonish the felony of ignorants like you!!


-thanks for giving me this opportunity!!
a non-IITian

Constraints of Independence

in·de·pend·ence –noun
1.Also, independency. the state or quality of being independent.
2.freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others.
3.Archaic. a competency.
When i look back at my life, I see that this word has had a lot to do with how I have lead my life(especially in the last 8 years). My childhood was spent in a cosmopolitan culture, owing to which I thought my measure of exposure& hence independence was relatively more than would have been of any small-town child. Though Delhi had a lot to do with shaping up my idea & need for freedom, my parents did their bit by making me realise the need & importance of being on my own ( independent as i may coin it). Once I moved to engineering college, my father who had forcibly stuck to job opportunities in and around NCR( because my sis & I were in school till then), began to explore opportunities out of town, and in no time of me having assumed life in college, did my parents move out of Delhi. The cessation of my parents' chaperoning the and the beginning of life in hostel gave me a greater chance to explore life on my own.
Though I talk about having grown independent in the past 8 years, I do beleive that it is much more deep-seated, and though the journey towards being independet can be prominently traced back from the times my parents left me on my own in Delhi, I am sure the seeds for the same were sown by my parents long ago when they were bringing me up.
While I dont want to take away any credit from my parents on the way they brought me up, I think it wont be fair if I dont mention the other side of the classical debate of nurture vs. nature. Yes, all I mean is that by nature I am someone who likes to be independent, to be on my own, to make my own decisons, and take responsibilites of both success and failure. I remember having made some of my biggest decisions in life all on my own. My decision to do an MBA immediately after engg was just one of them. And I thank my parents that they never questioned or imposed their opinion on me. I still remember when I was filling up forms for MBA entrances, I had decided to appear only for three exams, and that too no addendum applications to them. I had kept my options extremely niche, I knew if I dont make it to one of the three I dont have to do an MBA in that year. As a result of my decision I sometimes do feel that I should have done an MBA after acquiring some work-exp, but then the amazing experience of IITK just justifies the loss (if at all) I may have incurred by doing a back to back degree. At the end of the day, the blame is mine, the praise is mine...and I am glad both are mine!!
One of my friends once said: 'I want my wife to be as independant as you, shubham'. I remember having chuckled at that!! Reason being, independence is not a potion that you grind and push down someone's thoat, its a state of mind, its your attitude, and to top it all its a result of years of nurturing; also it takes the kind of toil (which I did voluntarily), that I once undertook in life.
While I have intelligently and responsibly exercised freedom in every aspect of life, both as a student & now as a working professional, there was one aspect which was always a source of both concern and pride in my life, that was my financial independence. As a spendthrift, independence of this sort was not only an achievement for me but also a necessity. Since life in Delhi could get really expensive when it came to enjoying, I made sure whatever I spend on my enjoyment/luxury should be my own hard-earned and not my parents' sweat-n-toil. That way I knew I would realise the real cost of every bit of enjoyment. And mind you, its not that my parents didnt have the resources, they posibly had more than was required to support two children. But their money was hard-earned, and in order to develop the respect for the same, I decided that any splurge that I did would be with my own money.
Here I would like to define two things which already people must be controversially guessing. One being, what was this 'splurge' that I wanted to do. Mind u, my definition of splurge was very simplistic, far from what a notorious mind can think. It meant buying a pair of branded footwear every weekend ( i love footwears, i own more than someone can possibly tolerate) & a luxurious spa at a nice up-scale salon, in those days (and still) VLCC. I mean this is luxury, and for those of you who are looking at this with the looks " Weirdo, do u even know what luxury/splurge means??', well in my definition it meant what i just mentioned. And thanks to this definition, in my hostel I used to be famous for having the maximum number of footwears(though I was famous also for an ever-bursting wardrobe of clothes, but my liking for clothes never till date have matched my fetish for shoes) and often girls borrowed a pair to match with their dress for the odd date that they went on. Also talking about the pampering VLCC spa...... boy!! nothing matches that feeling, and even till date there are a lot of working women professional who maynot have the heart/money for a splurge like that. The pride with which i mention these things here is not because these were upscale & fashionable things to do ( in fact there were far more fashionable things, like going to discotheques, which believe me i have done on count of fingers, and that too the counting finishes just as it begin i.e. my whole life experience at a discotheque has been once, though i was an avid dancer at JAM sessions in college fests!!).
The second contraversy that I think I should be clarifying here is, what was the 'source of money' for all the splurge that I did. Well, doesnt sound extraordinary but it will as and when I go into the mintue details of the experience. I used to teach 10th standard maths tuitions to a student in kashmere gate (very close to my college). I have always loved Maths as a subject. But the irony that I was caught in in my chosen vocation was that if I had taught that student for long enough I would have begun to hate the subject. That guy was 'dumbness' personified!! My hostel wingmates had given him the epithet of 'dumb-head', and nothing could have more appositely & simply described what he actually was. My dissemination of any mathematical knowledge to him made me feel guilty of my liking & knowledge for the subject.
To elicit more on his potential, let me tell you that his claim to fame was that he had already flunked 9th standard, so my task was to help him clear the 9th standard compartment exams(which I successfully did - and for that u really need to pat me on my back) & then prepare him for the 10th standrd board exams(wwhich...ok, never mind!!). After paying me Rs. 250 per hour for several months, all he could manage was a 8 on 100 in the final board exam. Can u imagine 8 on 100!! oh my GOD!! which soil did GOD use to carve his brain or rather I should say what was the quality of fodder filled into his brain... While the whole experience of making money from teaching tuitions was exciting & richening, the end result was putting off enough. When I heard that he flunked with 8 on 100, I felt like nick-naming myself 'dumb-head' for the fact that I accepted him as a pupil, and ofcourse for not even having had him get 33 on 100. Was 33, so much of a task?? I guess not, but yes I am sure it wasnt as easy as 8, which you can easily get for the sheer cleanliness & neatness of blank white paper on your answer script (if I were the examiner I would awarded 8 marks by looking at 8 blank sheets...which is what I am sure the board examiner did too!!). And as if this shock wasnt enough for me, his mother had wanted me to teach him for his compartment exams too...oh my GOD, I said, I couldnt have borne the trauma of putting him through trauma for another 3 months. So I quit that job, though I would love to take up teaching Mathematics as a vocation (I shall use my past experince as a caveat in selecting my pupil). Though the source of income stopped, I had other things to keep the money flowing in, I did oriflame network marketing for some time, only to realise that marketing was a tough task ( kudos to my DAD who has done it for nearly 30 years now, pitty i wasnt cloned with his gene in this aspect...I really appreciate these marketers).
Of course, all this stopped once I went to Kanpur, but believe me in Kanpur I had many more enriching experiences so the need of for richening diminished. I was a restraint spender in the 1st year. But in the 2nd year, after my Bangalore stay for my internship, there was just no looking back. I was spending in the 2nd year as amuch as I was spending in the internship days. Those were the days that hit my Dad's pocket the most...anyway that's history now...and here are the days when I am earning & the days when I am suppose to be earning.
Reiterating the financial independence part, I exhibit utmost pride in flaunting my financial independence. I am never perturbed to pay the bill of sitting out at a coffee shop with a friend, because it just gives me a kick, a reminder "Shubham, you are fiancially independant". And though I dont want to publically promote this, lest all coffee-cravers would soon be inviting me to cafe coffee day all the time; the point that I am trying to put across is that financial independence to me has been not only the achievement of my life, but has grown into an inherent need of my composition in terms of my self-esteem & ego.
Where I am coming from is that if suppose I get married to a guy who is filthy rich & hence asks me not to work, my sheer problem is where will I get the money to justify & splurge limitlessly. I mean, though he could have a big bank balance & I would be the beholder of several add-on credit cards, but then thats not my money & for the money that doesnt belong to me, I dont think I have the liberty (all by myself) to decide what all I can spend on. What i might do in a situation mentioned to me, is still not conclusive, simply because it is hypothetical & hence a lot of parameters stand missing.
So I just leave this as an issue to be pondered on...if ever required. And the clue to reaching a conclusion on this issue lies in what Professor Rahul Varman once said(I am sure it wasnt his orignal, but it was him that I had first heard this from). He said:
Freedom lies in realising that constraints exist.
My pride in my independence & the irony it bestows on me suggests that while I bask in the glory of my paycheck & bank-balance, I have to realise that this freedom is costing me my ability to accept someone else pay for my needs. While it does disturb me, I am optimistic that togetherness may change/tweak a lot of ideals & principles of my life. And i am sure they will be for the better!! I have heard that relationships make one very accomodative, and hopefully they not only make people accomodative in the intangibles/ tacit behaviors of a partner but also in the material attributes that are showered on you as a result of him/her. My guesses are that dependence is an integral component of building closeness in the kind of relationship that I am aspiring to get into. And the crux to getting into a relationship & maintaining it successfully shall lie in my understanding that: independence cannot be completely/wholly determined by financial independence. And somewhere I know that devoid of the financial independence, I still shall be 'independent', because it is second nature to ME.