Aspirational Settings

After my tenth standard I didn’t know what I wanted to study. I scored 84 % which was very good in my family’s eyes. Not so good when compared to everyone else’s results.  Long story short I got into Mithibai College in the Science stream. Not on my own merit. The reason why I took up Science in the first place was because I wanted to do something important. That’s all I knew- that I wanted to do something important and so the “obvious” solution was Science.  As if all the other professionals were just twiddling their thumbs at their workplace.

The first year went by smoothly mostly because I only had to pass. Which I did. With grace marks.

The epiphany came when I was in the second year- 12^th Standard. I realised that if I wanted to do something important I should so something what I think is important.

What I’m trying to say is that Indians have very wrong aspirational settings. What they’re trying to say is that IT engineers are important but farmers aren’t. Are you going to eat your programmes? How pathetic would a farmer or a tailor or a chef feel about himself just twenty years down the line if everyone starts to think that way? And it’s not like any of these professionals are creating anything new anyway. Most of them are well-trained clerks. India is manufacturing clerks in wholesale.

The other day I saw Housefull 2 and I was really saddened by the fact that they were so outspoken about how a driver’s job means absolutely nothing. If in its stead they would’ve let out a peep about any religion, there would’ve been riots in the country. A driver’s or anyone else’s job is no less important than, say, a CEO’s because if it wouldn’t have been for the driver driving the CEO around the CEO wouldn’t have reached his maximum potential.

He would be too busy driving himself around.

Two Sides of a Coin

I am studying about how the British rule over India all over again for some reason. It’s funny how you swear up and down after your 10th Board exams that you're not going to come even remotely close to any book that has Mahatma Gandhi written on it, let alone touch it. But, today when I read the same stuff I feel nostalgic and I actually enjoy reading about my country's history. It’s all about perspective, I guess.
Anyway, there are certain things that I notice now that had skipped my attention in the 10^th Standard. Surely if the British were suppressing us so much, they must be justifying their actions to themselves somehow. A little bit of digging showed that Europeans believed that they were doing us a favour by ruling over us. They thought that we were unorganised, technologically incompetent and inefficient. By providing means of communication and transport they were selflessly helping us develop as a country.
No doubt, all of these things did help us and we wouldn't be where we are today as a country if they hadn't made certain contributions but Indian scholars posed very suitable questions, contradicting their theory: If their contribution was so selfless, why were they taking away so much revenue to England? And if we were so inefficient how were they able to take such large revenues?
What I want to say is that every coin has two sides. While, we comfort ourselves by claiming that were victims of the British rule, they comfort themselves by saying that they were doing us charity. There is truth in both perspectives. It depends on which you chose to interpret from.
But, then if we take this example, there is never be any concrete truth in the world. There will always be point-of views, opinions and different versions of truth. There is nothing black and white. It’ll always be grey.