INDIA: A COUNTRY THAT PUTS BARRIER ON ITS YOUTH FROM PURSUING THEIR DREAMS

Acknowledgment 

I am very much thankful to my friend cum my sister cum my ex- batchmate from my masters days Chitwan Chandra in helping me putting some ideas into this topic. We were having some random conversation one day about our life and how boring it has been and how we are dealing with certain problems we both have. Later that night it just struck me that I should bring this to the people and I came up with my first blog. Whatever you are going to read further is not boring just give it a try and your comment and suggestions are always welcome. Pardon me if I have done something wrong or written something wrong this is my first blog and believe me my intentions were never to hurt someone’s feeling but just to bring the light to people like me, you and many others like us.  😊

 Introduction 

Since independence India as a country has thrived to achieve its highest potential. It was the British who suppressed the Indian society first and after the long struggle of independence the society turned out to be extremely orthodox. I won’t be covering history as well as the political aspects here but only the sociological aspect and the mindset of the people here in our society, my blog will start from the timeline when we entered 21st century. So, 1st Jan 2001 we had entered into a new era. Everything was supposed to be next level, technology was booming and it was supposed to boom and it was supposed to achieve the whole new level by the end of the century. Internet was a thing now and it is going to be a game changer for upcoming generation. Not only technology 21st century was supposed to bring lots of opportunities for various talents in different fields like sports, acting, theatre, singing, cooking and many other things we can think of as a career option. 

Well these things are supposed to be new only for the people living in India not for western world. This was because we were still struggling to supply electricity to the people living in rural areas. The country was still fighting poverty, lack of computer/technological knowledge, female feticide. Our focus was on having children preferably male child so that he could get educated, secure a government job and later support the family. 

Dreaming in India 

You want to be something different in your life? You want to pursue you dream? You are attracted towards something other than studies? You want to make a career out of it? Well then, my friend then you should have lost the sperm race to reach the ovary because you just came out in a pretty wrong country. There is a very less possibility that you will get to do what you want to do. Keeping aside the negative aspect suppose you get family support then my friend the biggest enemy is still waiting which is ohh! You guessed it right, relatives and society. These are those groups of human animals who are very much interested in others life even though their own life is ruined but they will not stop thinking about either ruining others or interfering with others life. Most of them are jealous of your success also, be it in any field because they are not there to praise your success, they interfere only to demotivate you and your parents because they want their children to excel over you. Pardon me for being harsh but it’s the sad truth of this country.  

Thankfully I have pretty decent relatives but I won’t say they all are 100% perfect but some of them are really nice to me that I can’t say anything about them, so if they are reading this I hope they will know who I have mentioned and they will understand. So, I am from Patna, Bihar a state still battling to be the perfect one in the country so you can understand what would be my situation belonging to this state and I have a Masters in Law. The society around me and my parents are like arre aapka ladka to Delhi mein law kar ra tha na kya hua? Achha LL.M(masters) bhi kar liya abhi kya ab? To be honest they are not intrested in what will I do in my life and what will I achieve, they only want to make sure I just don’t get to do something good and big in my life so that their child can excel over me and they get an agenda to shame my parents in front of the others in the society. This is what society is and this is what they do and this is not only my story this happens with everyone.  

So, you want to dream good, you have some passion? Good, but If you will share it with your family, I am pretty much sure 90% of family will be like NO! are you stupid/crazy? there is no future in it! What will you do if you won’t excel in it? This is bullshit it’s not made for us, do what we have told you to do and that is study and get a job, how will I face the society if you fail in this. I really wonder why to bother about failure even before you have started something? At least give it a try look out what your child wants? What talent he/she has and try nurturing him, and If you are a girl ohh! Please I am telling you stop thinking about it from the day 1 because if you are not among those 10% of family who really understand and supports their child you are a burden in some part of their heart or paraya dhan to them who should get some decent job if you have studied on a loan so that you can help in repaying nahi bhi milega to chalega and get married after reaching  certain age. (I might be wrong about girl thing but not completely wrong) 

Jobs 

Job this is the only word most of the Indian parents keeps thinking half of their parenthood life. Indian parents have just limited themselves to one thing JOB so if you are a boy do you remember 3 idiots? “Achhi naukri nahi hogi to koi baap apni beti nahi dega”? Same applies for girls also only 3 idiots part is just opposite here if you are not settled “koi achha ladka shaadi nahi karega”. If you get a government job then it’s an “icing on the cake” Yes that’s a real thing, also yes, they want to see you settled in your life and want to see you to earn. But what if this is not something you ever wanted to do. All this job and thing is just eating you up and you are not satisfied with it and you never will be, but you are only doing this because you were forced to do whatever the reason was. You wanted to pursue your career in something else like music, sports, acting, blog writing, dancing, painting, streaming or anything. It’s a 21st century you have tons of technological options available in your life but it’s so hard to convince them to showcase your talent and if you really are talented or hardworking people will recognize you. But parents will only think about one thing. What will society think? Actually, one more thing will come to their mind what will you do if you will fail. They are right at that point but why would you fail if your parents are supporting you and you have talent, also you have your studies and degrees with you. Well to be honest I am not saying you should just immediately quit your job and start following your passion keep you passion as secondary for the starters and Job your primary, or at least get a degree so that god forbid if everything fails you can still get decent/good job to make your living. It doesn't mean you should not focus on your dream from your childhood. Trust me following your dream from your childhood has much more chance of success because in childhood you are much free and you don’t have to think about anything else other than your dream and neither will you be forced to think of anything else. 

Being Independent & People’s mindset 

Being independent in India is something totally different from western worlds, In India you can only be independent when you got a proper job after completing your studies. You don’t believe me? You still think Deepika Padukone’s version of being Independent is the correct answer? Well try getting a part time job while you are in your college at any place like B.P.O or Some Restaurants or at some shops or at KFC and McD you will get your answers. Well don’t wait for your answer I’ll tell you and these will be the words of your parents. Are you mad? Why you working there? You focus on your studies first then you get a good job then we won’t say anything. They will play the emotional blackmail games with you like we are earning enough; you focus on your study only don’t waste your time on just working some small pity jobs like this. For a second thought I guess they are not wrong also, we should focus on our studies because there is a lot of competition but what's the problem in working what if we can manage both? Shouldn’t it be the moment of pride for our parents that we are not going to ask for money from them anymore and also that we will be gaining an experience in the field of work, also we are learning on how to manage work and personal stuffs, and we are learning to be independent also.  

But problem here is not only the parents it's our society and its mindset. Our society has divided the job in certain categories well I don’t think those categories has names or maybe I don’t know about those names pardon me for that. So according to me those categories are divided same as like the class of people divided in the society: 

1. Upper Class Jobs- Jobs like IAS, IPS, IFS or any Class 1 Jobs in government sector, Jobs in some big firms or corporate offices where you get really good salary, Doctor specially working in some big hospitals. 

2. Middle Class Jobs- Jobs like working 9-5 or 9-10 in some MNCs and still not able to earn more than INR 30K a month and you are not able to be recognized by the others, some government jobs where you are not getting salary over INR 40K. 

3. Lower Class Jobs- Working in some Malls, Coffee Shops, KFCs or McDs etc., working in some BPO, working as a newspaper vendor etc.  

     

You obviously won’t get the jobs in the above two categories because they require at least bachelor degree to apply for it but then you have the third category where you can easily get a job without even having a degree. To be honest these jobs are enough and sufficient to help you out when you are still studying also, they are enough to help you out to make a person independent but guess who will come along here to stop you and judge you. Yes, you guessed it right, it’s the society again. People will start judging you and start making their thoughts if they find out that you are working at some place like BPO, or coffee shops or any other place which comes into the third category of jobs. They won’t let you and your parents live peacefully. To be honest it would be very shameful for you and your parents. Even though you will ignore them I don’t know why our parents don’t want to ignore them. 

I always wonder why we have divided the jobs in these three categories? Yes, I know being an IAS officer or a big-time doctor or anything like that is very respectable job and they are treated like the king in the society but why this discrimination? Aren’t we supposed to just respect all the jobs? I don’t think jobs should be categorised. Nor should the people get discriminated on the basis of their job, because each and every job matters and it’s a chain cycle say for example if one stops from doing his job in the coffee shop or a mall where will the person working in MNCs will go to hang out or buy something? Or suppose if a newspaper vendor stops distributing newspaper what an IAS do in the morning with his cup of a tea seating in his lawn in the morning? Or suppose a software engineer stops working how will a government server and all the documentation system in today’s digital world work? Also, how will the payment system in malls and coffee shops will work? I guess we have divided these jobs based on their pay scale too, but I am not going to talk about all that because that will cover more of a socio-political aspect. In-short what I wanted to convey is that no job is a smaller and no job is big we all are inter-twined with each other’s job. It's just our socio-political situation and our society has just categorized it. 

Being a girl  

As mentioned above being a girl in Indian society is never an easy thing, especially in patriarchal society we have. They had truly fought a long way to reach where they are today. But they still fighting with the society they are not completely free. Even though female feticide is not a thing today but still if a girl is born in a family if not the parents elderly people gets downhearted. I’ll give you an example, do you know some male guy? Who has elder sisters (Keep in mind I used the word sisters not sister) and he is the younger one? I guess you do, have you ever thought why? Well most of the time its because their parents wanted to have at least one boy in the family. I have an example in my family, my own aunt. (chachi) Her younger brother is 1year younger than me and her son my cousin brother is 2 year younger than me and my aunt has total 7 brothers and sisters just because they are 5 sisters and 2 brothers. But at least its good to see that these things are changing now at least. Now think how hard it will be to dream big or even dream for something in the family. Girls are always supressed to do one thing study, get a job if not its okay and get married. Thankfully at least now they are allowed to get a job.  

But even after getting a job there comes a time when the parents will start forcing her to get married just after 2-3 years of job. If they resist, we all know what happens, Yes society thing will come in play, like what people will think? You are still un-married you are already 28-29-30 these will be the emotional drama played by the parents in front of the girls. I think most of the girls are not allowed to dream something out of ordinary just because parents are more focused on their marriage rather than asking her beta what do you want? Eventually the girls have finally made their mindset that they have to do one and only one thing study, get a job, get married. I am not saying they can’t pursue their career after their marriage, yes they can but after getting married most of the girls gets confined within some boundaries set by the same stupid society. I know there are lots of examples of girls accomplishing their dream even after getting married, but I bet most of them belonged either to the good educated family who really cared about their daughter/daughter-in-law/wife to do what she wanted or they are from a big cities not the small towns or village. But this is not everywhere not all girls are lucky enough.  

Question arises here why? Simple answer to this is that our so called society has put some limits on the girls like, they should get married, they should not be allowed to explore the world, they should not be allowed to get more than what a male can do, they should not allowed to get more educated and this has made a real struggle for the girls to get what they really wanted. Why society gets to decide what a girl should do? Aren’t we living in an era where the world is going beyond the moon, we are thinking of finding habitat on other planets and we are still following some old norms set by the old generation some thousands of years ago which clearly lacks its competency in the present era.  

Few Who have Done Something 

Even knowing the society and its thinking there are still some people who fought and reached the milestone they always wanted to achieve. The names like MS Dhoni, a guy working as a ticker collector who won two Cricket World cups for India in two different formats ODI and T20 and both at the first attempt, we all have seen the movie MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and we all know his father was so much fond of him getting a government job that he was just ready to ignore his son’s talent and he wanted him to be the puppet of some 9-5 job. We know how his dad reacted when he came to know that he left the railway job for the cricket, that’s what most of the parents still does to their children instead of supporting them. Now let's think of it like this what would have been the case if Dhoni had never decided to quit the railway job? I guess no one would have ever witnessed the man doing some crazy skills from behind the stumps and on the pitch. We might would have never won the first T20 world cup and ODI world cup after 23 years in cricket.  

Another name in this is Geeta and Babita Phogat even though they had a supportive father we all know how society treated them in their childhood when their father started training them for the wrestling. Everyone said that wrestling is not for the girls they should learn how to do household works instead of focusing on the wrestling. Also the wrestling federation said no to support them during their initial training days.  

Late Sushant Singh Rajput the guy who was excellent in studies ranked AIR 7th in DCE entrance exam and the guy who left his studies just to pursue his dreams we all know he was from Bihar and I am pretty sure his dad would must have scolded him a lot. But do you really think had he would have stopped there we would have witnessed such a great actor who always used to bring a charm and enthusiasm on screen with his presence? 

So there is this one Youtuber “Flying Beast” he is a pilot and his wife Ritu Rathee(@riturathee) is a pilot too and Flying beast and his family are very supportive towards her. But her journey was never easy, in one of her Instagram post she shared her story of life that how she fought with the society and her relative to follow her dream and become what she is today. Her relatives asked her father to not to give her more education as she is a girl she will only bring down the family name. This is what she said “ I wanted to go to US for further training and studies but our relatives said, don’t send her abroad, She’ll go abroad & do things with boys, get her married before she is fully ruined”. Now think of it having such a mindset in our society how can a girl achieve her dream. Thankfully her father was supportive and she helped her follow her dream and that was a big time slap on the face of her relatives. 

Another great example is of Harmanpreet Kaur the women Shehwag of India, a girl who born in a dusty lanes of Moga, Punjab in the middle class family where her family was so conservative mindset that when she expressed her feelings for the cricket she was unsurprisingly rebuffed by her parents. But despite her parents foiling every moments of her life and every opportunity in every possible manner she fought for it and kept working towards her dream, she even played with men in her initial years which was a practice which was disapproved by her kin and kith. But we all know a real talent never goes wasted and her coach spotted her and then rest is just a history. The same girl has now earned a prestigious Arjuna Award in her field. I just wonder how prideful her parents must have been now. Had they stopped her I don’t think we would have seen such great talent in the world of women cricket. 

There are tons of others examples of various personalities who fought for their dream and achieved it or has got a proper support from family and their family didn’t cared about the society and relatives. 

1st Word countries Vs India 

Ever wondered why people in west are more qualified in almost every field? Again, keep the political aspect aside, just think on the sociological one. Let's keep the political one for the next time. So back again, do you guys ever wondered why people in the 1st world countries or western countries are more qualified than the people in our country? Leave that lets take an example from China itself. The one we are fighting with these days. They excel in Olympics every time. Where do we stand ? somewhere in the bottom of the list. Our technology sector is dominated by them only. Where are we? Doing some job for a company funded by china right?   

I guess you guys must have understood by now that what is the reason behind this. We all know how their society is, how those people treat their child, their jobs, how they don’t interfere with what their child want to do, how they don’t judge the people for what job they do also they do not categorize the job and also they do not have this pathetic thinking of a small job or a big job. For them working is part of life to earn, to settle, to be independent, to gain experience, to show their capabilities etc. Let's put it this way if you have ever been to any western world or if you have any friends over their just ask them what they did for living when they were in college? Also did their parents decided what they wanted to do in their life? Did they reacted the same way as our parents do when they told them about their dream or passion which they wanted to follow? I guess 95-99% of them would say NO.  

Ok let's talk about schooling itself, more than half of the total schools in India don’t have a proper extra-curricular activity department even if they do have it extra-curricular activity is just a type of a formality for their students so that they can perform at some annual function or any other kind of functions in the school. Now coming to sports in school I remember in my school D.A.V, and let me make one thing clear the branch from which I had done my schooling was one of the best School of my town in academics. We had three P.T teacher in my school and all of them were just to maintain the discipline and to beat the shit out of the students. They only focused on the students of +2 or intermediate to help them in sports. Not on the students below class 11th. Now think growing up in this kind of school environment how can a student, a kid, can grow or bring his/her potential out. 

 I was in my school’s NCC (National Cadet Corp), once I was summoned in the middle of my social studies period in class 9th during my NCC days I went there for the parade practice. When I came back during the lunch break my friends told me that my class teacher who was taking my class when I left said “pata nahi ye ladka apna time in sab kuch mein waste kar ra hai aur parents bhi kaise allow kar dete hain ye sab karne ke liyea ” (I wonder why this kid is wasting his time in all this and how come his parents also allow for this). Now think of it how can someone will excel when the teachers in the school themselves has a such low standard of thinking and they themselves don’t see the potential or they don’t support the child in pursuing their dreams. 

Look at the countries like US, UK, CANADA they have their own school sports team in almost all kind of sports (RUGBY, FOOTBALL, BASKETBALL, ICE-HOCKEY, BASE-BALL etc.) they have a coach for sports who helps them train in the field of the sports the student or the kid want to grow in, also they have extra-curricular activity teams and competition and they do have the separate teachers to help them in music, art, singing, etc also. Compared to our society and school now just think who will excel them or us? 

Conclusion  

There is this very famous dialogue from the Bollywood movie Rang De Basanti “koi desh perfect nahi hota, use perfect banana padta hai” (No country is perfect, it's we the people who has to make it perfect) given the current situation in India even we have to do the same. I know journey won’t be easy, given the situation we are dealing with in our country and the double standard thinking of the society. Parents needs to understand and stop their double standard thinking which they have, where on one hand they think they are going along with this generation and on the other they are still ashamed of what society will think instead of thinking that how will it affect emotionally and mentally to their child. Well I am not saying what they are doing is wrong or they should not think about and our future, as a parent it's their duty and affection towards us and this should never go. But at least they should not limit their child within some walls and parameters set by them or their society.  

Everyone has the right to think about their future and they should be allowed to dream for it and they should be supported to pursue their dream. No one knows what talent a person is having and what he can achieve. I am not saying that a person be it a boy or a girl should not get a proper education due to this. Yes, education is important and parents has all the rights to think about the education of their child but do this along with helping your child in pursuing their dream if he/she dreams to do something outside the educational field like art, singing, sports, etc. If parents would be supportive at least the child will never regret even if they fail in it, that they wanted to do something and they were not allowed just because their parents don’t want them to do something out of ordinary. At least they won’t say this to their child in future. Also, they will feel proud for a part that they tried to make a change. So what if he failed. 

Biggest enemy in all of this is the society which is like a termite to this generation. The idea that the society will decide that what is right and what is wrong for the child of another person should go and parents who has kept themselves apart from this has seen their child becoming more successful than the one who still thinks about this stupid society and their old orthodox thinking. It should only be the family (including the people who understand and genuinely care and not every tom, dick and harry of the family) and close friends who should have right to advice in decision making. I also have passion and dreams but I was not able to follow them because of proper family support I am not saying my family is bad or they are not supportive or someone else’s family is bad. It's just their thinking and them and their thinking which is mostly controlled by society or they don’t want to understand what you want and it is good for you. 

I have a full faith if all this changes nothing can stop India and its young ones from achieving their true potential and their dreams. Also, who knows maybe this helps us in and bring us one step closer to all those 1st world countries.  Hope you guys will agree to this too. ✊