Mundane Milestones

The issue that's bothering me is the incessant prodding of Mundane Milestones. Milestones - unfortunately for most, are socially dictated.



Be born, grow up, study, marry, reproduce, grow old and die. The cycle of life. Within this cycle, you're expected to earn money, save, travel the world, enrich your children, be materialistic, opt for a regimented career ladder and finally retire with a lump sum for the rest of days.

How linear? Why can't we curve our own experiences? Choose our own free will?

As I was growing up, I had seen a friction between pursuit of American shows vs parental control. Most shied away from SEX - the biggest sin on earth. I always wondered what truly had been the bone of contention - was it only as trivial as sex or was it something more?

Today when I think about it, our concept of America is entwined with free will implicit in their culture. Hence a corny notion of culture gap.

Free will or freedom to choose your own life for most of us is a holy grail not a habit loop.

Let's get down to some examples of the 'free' mindset - 

•  I was once discussing about my hopeless future with my mother. Her idea of life is simple - marry, be a parasite, rear children as the only duty of the womankind, die with child's hard earned money honeying her embers. I wonder how I came out of her womb - we are such polar opposite creatures. Anyway, I had the misfortune of once telling her that I would be later adopting a child - to me the idea had been rooted in shades of my own childhood (another blog someday) and the dream of enabling a young soul who could have had a sordid past. There are plenty like that. Being a Cancerian I am naturally maternal - but practical too. Yes any girl would love to see the chemical compound a child would be of both parents - who's nose would s/he get, who's eyes etc. - but somewhere I had always known I had my own architecture of thought that bordered on giving a life but not of my own flesh and blood. My own flesh and blood would also involve gaining nearly 20 kgs - no difficult a feat as losing it would surely be a nightmare for a depression prone patient such as me. I know instinctively I could never deal with the post partum blues. But the moment the truth of my dream crept out of my lips, my boorish mother bounced back on me with her bearish self. She could not fathom how I can be "irresponsible" (I clearly am at a loss of the use of the adjective here as adoption is one of the most responsible dreams that I could ever harbor!). Her facts were drawn out of 100s of my friends who are happily married with children to which I calmly pointed out that out of that 100, 50 are already divorced and bearing brunt of a bad decision. However, she persisted with the imaginary 100 figure as her yardstick of true womanhood - they had the courage, passion, dream and a behaved version of a settled life to have children with a loving spouse. I did zone out soon after as I felt my recounting of the side where the grass isn't as green - but before that I did point out the example of Sushmita Sen living it up with boldly and beautifully with her two adopted children. She in fact broke many a fear paralysis at one go - adoption, no marriage, no child of flesh, blood and fat and both to be girl children. To which the maddening woman, her Bengali ego hurt along with her kinship with other Bengali women stinging, cited example of Bipasha Basu who was a 'waste and lost in life' before marrying or Sushmita Sen could have done better had she settled down. I mentally shut down my case with the prayer of QED silent on my lips - but my point was fairly well made. Free will to live, free will to think of your own life in your own way and also free will to decide what happens to your body. It does not belong to your parents, society, to any man or anyone - save your own self.

• My Facebook photos show many images of my friends happily getting hitched. Claps and Bravo for taking the plunge.Where I beg to differ - and this is my personal opinion alone - is the use of shenanigans to express celebration. Why would the code of celebration be linked with food, revelry, costumes and performances. Why can't simplicity be a way of life - register marriage if you may and get done with it? Are we socially pressured to follow the doctrine of how a marriage ritual should be or how much money should be sinking to keep the couple afloat on their personal Titanic? 'Society' itself has led us to be so micro eyed about every issue in life - forgetting the larger picture. Our basic rights are expensive to us, we do not know where the taxes we pay go, India is still touted as an emerging or under-developed economy, jobs are uncertain - given all this why not simply save money and spend on more fruitful adventures? In fact I love the travel pictures of the same Facebook friends - travel is a worthy expense - so is marriage ceremony a conduit?

• Rushing to office to be on time and working till late. A very slave driven mindset and philosophy. Everyday I see hundreds of commuters cursing the Bangalore traffic under their breath, otherwise on their phones apologizing for running late. That's good - punctuality is a disarming quality of the human kind. But today, where the work primarily runs on technology, why not simply work from home? Do we really need an office structure and physical presence to report into? Are we not adults who could be responsible about our own deliverables? Free will exists in the way one perceives his / her work life balance - in this case commute too. Working from home for most could also save commute money, commuting pains of navigating their wheels through to the nearest spot to escape traffic and also boost up productivity. Another problem with most rigid corporates I find is the culture of leaving work late. Why? Is there a point to prove? There could be aberrations but not a daily crisis one has to solve. There must be equal emphasis placed on me-time that leads to strengthening one's EQ.

These are some of the top thoughts that I rattled on. Let me think up of some more to prattle on. Till then do comment with any after thought.