The neurotic society II

In my last article, I had at length discussed how our education system was designed to destroy talent and celebrate mediocrity. The youth of our country is no less harassed by the faulty parenting that the society has provided them. The one question I would like to ask every parent when they have planned to bring a new life into the world is that do they have any training or education regarding the bringing up of their unborn child or are they heavily dependent on the outdated advices and suggestions of people above the age of sixty who still believe that if a child eats mud then it is good for its digestive system or that if the child looks between its open legs backwards then another child is surely on its way, implying that his mother is surely pregnant or if you eat a conjoint banana then you will surely give birth to twins. Do these aspiring parents ever plan for their finances or do they still believe that every child comes to the world with its own kismet and we should not interfere the plans of the almighty? I am sure that most of the parents I am asking this question to would not be able to give a calm and confident –‘yes’. The truth is that we are swelling the population of this country based on old mythological superstition that if you do not give birth to a ‘Putra’(Son) or a ‘Putri’ (daughter), you will surely end up in a ‘Put’(a kind of hell where you will be suspended upside down for eternity) Interestingly in India, people of all religions seem to endorse this superstitions and strictly ensure that there is no choice for their ward but to get married and settle down as soon as possible. I strongly believe that the couples who wish to give birth should have to undergo a physical, mental or financial test and get a clearance certificate before they are given a three month workshop on how to bring up a child before they actually give birth and start raising a son or a daughter. It may sound too radical and impossible but the truth is that we are passing on all our bad habits, insecurities, fears and vices to our children . Our wards who look up to us find us in despair, find us lying, find us quarrelling with each other, find us giving up on our pursuits, find us criticizing our country, find us believing in astrologers and following baseless superstitions and then copy us. We scold our wards for not being thankful to us for bringing them into this world and providing them with the basic necessities of live which may not be available to countless people of the world. To compensate for this favour, we expect them to over perform in studies and get rid of their worthless infatuations with futile activities like painting, writing, acting or sports which are not very high paying. Parents tend to treat their children as their future equity savings which will reap benefits in future. So the parents wish to have a good time tested portfolio and would like to invest in blue chip shares with high returns like studies and only studies. Even in studies, the options available to wards are very limited, Engineering, Commerce, Medical science and maybe Arts but other interesting careers like Media, journalism, fashion designing or physical education are considered to be too risky and only after thoughts if nothing else works.

When the student completes his studies the real test starts for him. The first thing he encounters is the huge load of expectations heaped upon him. The common expectations are for him to get married, have children, have a new car and house as big as that of his parents, at least. So practicall at the age of 23, he has been asked to have savings around 50 lakh rupees in the next seven years to finance all the basic expectations mentioned. That is that if we deduct his taxes, his savings and his basic necessities he will have to earn a salary of one lakh rupees per month. So he is nothing more than a machine to manufacture money. To top it all the parents then expect him to provide them with luxuries in their old age, respect them for their sacrifices and also to feel happy. Happy! Did I just mention the word happy? Since when has our modern society ever started to think of the happiness of the youth?

The consequences are that this mad rush has given rise to these expensive private schools, colleges, coaching centres and IELTS training centres that are a major expenditure for middle class homes. People of the middle income group which make up for the major percentage of the urban population invest heavily in these education selling institutions and are themselves becoming a major means of torture for themselves and their children.

 When something is unnaturally suppressed then it bursts out eventually. That is the law of nature. It is for that reason we find that the greatest best-selling authors in India are usually IIT graduates like Amish Tripathi and Chetan Bhagat and Lawyers such as Robin Sharma and not from the field of arts and we have so many people in the jobs and business that have been shoved down their throats, doing what they hate and hating what they do.

 God bless us.

 I will discuss the other aspects of this problem in my next article. Please give me your comments and suggestions regarding the same.