In our dreams...

60 long years ago, our leaders promised us a tryst with destiny and announced we had promises to keep and miles to go. Well, I don't know whether Robert Frost managed to do what he set out to do in his poem but we definitely haven't!
We promised ourselves a secular nation - free of bias, prejudice, communal divisions, religious confrontations and so on and so forth.
So, at the expense of beating a much beaten drum and flogging a very dead horse, we are no further on than our forefathers were decades ago... Yes, yes, I know! We are India Shining. So what? Scratch the surface of all that shine and bling and what do you find?
The same racial divides, the same tired and nasty old attitudes...
A few examples...
Domestic help should not sit on chairs in front of their employers. They should have separate utensils to eat from. Their food is carefully parcelled out. and on occasion they are beaten, raped, abused and trodden underfoot.

Brahmins to marry Brahmins. Every caste to stay in its own place - and as for the STs and SCs and the OBCs - for them as long as we have quotas, we can treat them like dirt. Fair and homely girls are still the only kind that sons should marry and the Green Card is the gateway to the promised land.

Farmers are committing suicide by the hundreds. No one seems to care... But why are they dying? Because they and their families are starving to death but then so what? The tribals are dying. The pavement dwellers are dying. Little children are dying, woman are being burnt to death, beaten up and thrown out... in a country of one billion plus, who is going to notice the deaths of even thousands?

Let's look at urban India.Foreign woman "goris" are getting raped and molested with impunity. Why? Because they are considered 'white' chicks and fair game. Bachelors, single women (even though they are above 50!), Muslims, blacks, non-vegetarians (in Chennai) and probably a whole host of others, are denied a place to stay.Women still face a glass ceiling at work and men refuse to discuss business matters with them down South. How secular is that?

We are so fixated about our so-called ethnic pasts that we re-christen cities that didn't even exist before the Brits - there was NO Mumbai or Kolkata or Chennai before the Brits. So where do these names come from? Are we trying to re-write our own history and trying to wipe out 200 years of our existence?

Last, but not least, why should North Indians be kept out of Maharashtra? Anyone with basic knowledge of history will know that before Maharashtra became a linguistic state it consisted of large tracts of Gujarat, and Mumbai itself had more people from other parts of India than from Maharashtra itself. Why should Bengal be only for Bengalis and Punjab for Punjabis?

It's amazing what our politicians will do to win votes. They will stand our constitution on its head with impunity. Who cares about all the principles, ideals and ethics that India was founded upon? We are supposed to be ONE united nation. But are we? Deep down in our hearts? Or are we just a fractured entity being pulled apart by a million vested interests? How does it matter if in the process of dividing to rule, our country goes back to being a hundred little fiefdoms fighting for survival. What price India Shining?

Thank you ladies!

Today, very coincidentally, I was made to realise how far some of us women have really come... Today, I realised afresh how much we have forgotten what our less fortunate sisters-in-arms fought for decades ago. How much I,personally, have taken for granted about freedom of thought, action, ideas, way of life and living.

So why this wake up call? One conversation. One TV show. And things I have not given much thought to was brought home forcibly to me again.

The conversation was about widowed young girls - as young as eight, 10 or in their early teens, being sent to Vrindavan to spend the rest of their lives with shaved heads and in abject misery. Even today. About young women, aged 16, 20 and 25, widowed and spending their entire lives as the poorest of poor relatives, consigned to doing the most menial jobs for some food and shelter. How over the centuries men ruled our lives with an iron fist... and we smiled and smiled and took it because we were made to believe we deserved it.

Then I saw a TV show about an advertising agency in New York in the 50s. And everything came back to me in a rush! How men would never look at a woman unless she was 'hot'... unfortunately that is still true of men today but it is getting better!
How if a guy took you out, then you were automatically expected to jump into the sack as a "thank you" gesture.

How in offices, the only way men used to look at a woman was by undressing her mentally. How in a zillion different ways women were slighted, put down, relegated to less than a human condition because the grown up gorillas in suits thought they were the masters of the universe. Because they said so... and it was a man's world!

How, the only thing that a woman were supposed to want to be was a wife and mother! As long as the lord and master gave her a house, kids and money, she was supposed to be deliriously happy and contented. God forbid if she actually wanted to use her brains! What brains? Women were supposed to be bird-witted, didn't we know?
As for the guy? He could do whatever he wanted - have affairs by the dozen, drink himself silly, behave outrageously - women were expected to look pretty, obedient, demure and take what ever he dished out on the chin, dust herself off and carry on as if nothing happened!

I know that today in large swathes of the world, including in our own country where the girl child is being killed off before she is born and brides are still being burnt, women are still at the bottom of the pit, trodden upon, mutilated and dishonoured, ill-treated and living in the most appalling conditions.

So while I shouldn't really cloak myself in selfish satisfaction, I am so grateful that I have been able to do what I wanted to do and lived the life I wanted to live - with dignity,self-respect,satisfaction and independence... and yes, happiness! Thank you Emily Pankhurst. Thank you Germaine Greer. And all those ladies who burnt your bras and stood up for yourselves, to make your stand in a man's world. You made a better life possible for women like me. I am truly grateful!

Excuses! Excuses! Excuses!

Whenever I have dared to comment on the state of the nation (NOT with the same impact as an American President, of course!) I have been thrown a curve ball which leaves me gently frothing at the mouth... Let me enumerate a few of them here...

1. Why don't people follow road rules, I ask, when a huge top-of-the-line SUV careens across four lanes of traffic and misses us miraculously.
Excuse: (Indignantly) How can you expect people to maintain road discipline when they don't even get one square meal a day!!!

Okkkkaaayyyy... but the guy in the SUV didn't seem to me to fall into that category. So what's his excuse?

2. Recently a middle level official in the transport licensing department was finally caught taking bribes. What gave him away? His 3.5 crore house to start with - given as how his monthly salary was 18,000 rupees a month. In fact his whole department was caught - from top to bottom.
Excuse: (Sadly) You don't understand! How can he make ends meet on that salary? He has to feed his family...

Well, that's true - especially if you are a foot soldier in the police or a humble teacher in a government school with a take home of 6000 - 7000, if that.
But on Rs.18,000, one can feed one's family - providing one doesn't aspire to houses worth crores!

3. Getting a passport. The horror stories are legion. Six months. One year. In some cases - never. People are made to run around - in circles literally.

4. Getting a gas connection - supposed to be quick and easy, right? No way!

5. Getting a pan card - can take up to three months. Why?

6. Not to mention load shedding (mind you, I read somewhere, that one of the head honchos in our government said right to power is not a constitutional right!), water shortages, uncleared garbage... I could go on and on...

So what's the excuse?
Excuse:(Airily)... Those are minor problems... you have to understand! We have a one billion plus population. It takes time for efficiency, productivity, discipline to trickle down. There's a long way to go - from the top to bottom! (Where the rot really starts, I thought to myself!)

So that's the realty of it all - no excuses, no passing the buck! We have been trying for over 60 years... by the time all this is fixed, I'll be dead and gone and won't be in any position to give a damn!

When I am 64... ... what will I be doing?

Will I be earning? Will I be working?
When I am 64?
No, of course not!
Didn't I know that as an over 35...
I might as well be dead and buried - alive?

But... but... I protest! My brain is still working!
And I am sure it will do so, when I am 64!
No it won't, say the young Pundits of today.
How can I assume that I will know how the young think...
What they want and what they dream?

How will I understand their lingo, their aspirations,
Their driving force...their motivations?
Because I am over 35, way over 35, so how would I know
How our young country thinks?

But... But... I try again. Surely not everyone...
Is under 35... is my weak refrain.
They might as well be, the know-it-alls tell me...
Didn't I know? they say with curling lip...
And contemptuous sneer...

Look around you, they rub it in with glee!
That all those who really matter...
Today's movers and shakers...add up to 65%...
Of India's population...
And they are all under that magic figure... 35!
So how do YOU expect to do anything useful
In our young country?

In one last weak effort, I try to counter...
Their arguments and oh-so-supercilious manner.
Look around you, I cry, in a last ditch effort...
Tell me why this so very young country of ours...
Is run by a bunch of geriatrics...
None of whom can claim to be remotely within...
Smelling distance of 35?

Tell me, I say again...
Why is it OK to run the world's largest democracy...
But I can't be trusted to work at earning a living?
When I am 64!

Once upon a time...

I was a funny writer! No, really, truly I was a writer with a sense of humour! If any of my English teachers were alive today (which is highly improbable; they are all probably pushing daisies by now!)they would all attest to this fact.

Immodest as it may sound, I had a ironic turn of phrase, a penchant for punning and a wry, self-deprecating sense of humour - on occasion verging on the pie-in-the-face variety of comic capers.

Incidentally, I am quite impressed by my command of the English language - it seems I do remember words other than 'Free!', 'New', 'latest', 'best', 'never before!', 'buy one, get one free' and others of the same ilk! 40 years selling soap and cars and cereal does depress any pretensions I might have had regarding my command over the Queen's English - or even Hinglish!

So where was I? Ah, yes, my lost sense of the funny and the comic - which would come into their own even in those essays we all used to turn in after every summer - "My ideal summer holidays!"

My essays used to be quite funny, hysterical more often than not, and full of incidents and happenings. I always got 10 on 10 for originality! And a pat on the back... Why I even wrote articles for the trend setting Junior Statesman - and Desmond Doig,it's legendary editor, didn't even edit a single funny word!

So what happened in the intervening years? Why can't I imbue my life and all that's happened to me in the bright shades of laughter instead of the dull shades of whinging and complaints? Horror of horrors... maybe instead of becoming merely bitter and infused with acidity, I have become, even worse, dull, boring and trapped in a pool of self-pity?

I really must think this over. Next time I am stuck in the Mother of all traffic jams in Nehru Place, I must instantly compare it to being bumper to bumper at the entrance to the George Washington Bridge - and bless my lucky stars that instead of just being surrounded by cars and trucks, I am actually in the middle of a maelstrom of cows,cycles, autos, hand carts, rickshaws, two wheelers, tempos, cars of every shape and size (including Beamers!)and people, people and more people! This comparison should then make me realise how very boring being stuck over the Hudson really used to be!

So, in future, I shall try and always look at the funny side of things... whether it's the temper trantrums of our recalcitrant maid, load-shedding three times a day, the water running dry just when I have lathered up a headfull of shampoo, missing sure death while crossing the road when the light is against on-coming traffic - and such other minor hazards of daily life here in the land of my forefathers!

I am now going to look far and wide for my missing sense of humour. Wish me luck!

10 better-than-good reasons why mothers deserve Mother's Day!

Why 10 better-than-good reasons? Because three and five weren't enough reasons and 10 is a nice, round, impressive number! But I digress...! And the reasons I am going to propound have nothing to do with the usual ones that Moms get credit for...

Like being loving and caring and teaching kids the right value systems or for being there for them at all the right and the wrong times and staying up at night and car pooling them around all day... No Siree! Not for me the usual reasons... I think the 10 reasons Moms need to be given credit for are for the miracles they wrought and the mental strain and stress we all undergo while wroughting (I just invented a new word!!!) the same said miracles!

1. Sitting on one's hands while a toddler wobbles his way towards you and trips over a cushion narrowly missing the corner of a glass table.
2. Counting till 110 when said toddler, now a hyper active two, manages to get in the way of a cricket ball and comes home with a black eye to die for.
3. When a nine year old is warned again and again NOT to use a speed breaker as a take-off ramp for his bike, is threatened with dire consequences if he doesn't cease and desist, but does it anyways and ends up landing on his head and produces a bump that rivals the black eye in size, bumpness (another new word! I am inspired!) and sheer hassle value.
4. Keeping one's mouth shut when an aspiring chef, all off 17 years old, bakes a cake with baking soda instead of good old, garden variety flour and then can't understand why said cake is not only flatter than a pancake but as inedible as a rubber tyre.
5. Sitting on one's hands, again!, when an oh-so-proud 11 year old comes home and boasts of having done head-stands on top of the slide in school... then spending 45 minutes explaining the potential, utterly paralysing effects of a fall and then getting a call from school the next day about just such a fall - but, luckily, without the damage - excepting for 6 stitches!
6. Keeping one's mouth shut when adventurous, experimental, nothing-will-ever-happen to me 20 year olds go out to carouse and swagger and impress every babe in town and then come home with a hangover to end all hangovers and Mom then administers Alka Seltzer, soothing words and TLC... when all she wants to say is "I told you so!"
7. When a young, hurting and miserable 18 year, away from home, hearth and family, weeps her heart out because some Lothario broke it (her heart that is) and the Mom can't do anything, anything at all, except wish the most dire and vicious vengeance upon every man ever put on this earth.
8. Or because a Mother is called upon to solve a catastrophic problem that leaves her very, very grown up 'child' thousands of miles away, a quivering wreck and she deals with the problem by remote control and the help of good friends... and one night totally awake and totally stressed out!
9. Consider the sheer terror that a Mother experiences when, in a crowded shopping mall, her child disappears for not more than 30 seconds and the relief she gives vent to with a tight slap on her bottom (or actually any part she can reach!) when the child reappears clutching a stranger's hand.
10. Imagine, if you can, the frustration, depression, despair(!) and sheer anger a Mother feels when her all-knowing, all-grown-up son is down with the Mother of all colds (I wonder why it's ALWAYS the Mother and not the Father of all wars, cold, disasters?)and will just not listen to common sense advice just because WHY should one listen to one's Mother? What does she know anything about anything?

Well, I feel these are 10 better-than-good reasons why Mothers deserve all the praise they get on Mother's day.

And there are two homes truths about Mothers and kids that were, I am sure, accepted even by the Neanderthals...

One: to a parent a child will always be a child however old the child is - 5, 15, 55 or 105!

Second: It doesn't matter how much distance there is between a Mom and her kid; however much the Mom tries to run away from her kid (or more often vice-versa), she will never be able to get away, because the kid or kids is inside her head - and one can't really run away from that!

Envious Casca?

According to the Bard, old Julius commented of Casca that"he had a mean and hungry look, such men are dangerous!" Well, even my dearest enemies would hesitate to describe me as mean and hungry but I have been wondering that maybe, just maybe, I am a tad bit envious of those fortunate few who occupy those 'ivory towers of wealth and privilege'?

I have not really been a great one for keeping up with the Joneses. Sad to say, nor have I been overly ambitious. I have never really clung grimly to those steep ladders that the upwardly mobile make a fetish of climbing so assiduously - so that they may, at some stage, charge $6000 shower curtains, their dry cleaning bills and flowers for their trophy girl friends, to their expense accounts.

But I do resent it when I over-hear people, who have a car (sometimes cars) at their disposal 24x7, say how much they enjoyed one solitary auto ride on a holiday - and they didn't have to bargain with the driver either! Wow!!! How wonderful! So very different from my twice - daily experiences and altercations with the same charioteers with the sun beating down mercilessly on me!

Does that comment make me envious?

And then there are those who complain that their domestic help has taken off suddenly - I commiserate till I find out that he/she is one of half a dozen. isn't that inconvenient?

There! Not only do I sound envious, I sound positively bitchy!!!

So what's my point exactly? I wish people would stop telling me how lucky I am to be back after 17 years in the land where my every need will be looked after, where I don't have to bestir myself to do anything (except watch movies, play bridge or socialise every day), where I will not have to slog it out in subways and buses and can happily buy clothes and jewellery without blinking an eye lid.

All I have to say is sure thing! Would any of these ivory tower denizens like to change places with me? In my not so high blocks of concrete and brick - surrounded by garbage, holy cows and 'coloney ka kuthas!'?

There are no free lunches!

Should one walk out? Or not? Should one leave the cocooned comfort of a luxury home...
And face the poisoned barbs of a self-satisfied, self-indulgent, self-righteous, hypocritical society?

While these were questions that really didn't apply to me 30 years ago... (I wish I had had to struggle with the idea of leaving a luxury home! No such luck!) they are questions that a lot of women face while struggling with that famous "To be or not to be?" situation that had the Prince of Denmark tearing his hair out.

Imagine this scenario: A wayward, bullying, megalomaniac or Don Juan of a husband whose mood changes are as unpredictable as the English weather; who likes to strut his stuff over wife and family by denying, and then showering them, with money, gifts and what have you. Expecting them to forgive and forget - because he says so! In short bribing them into submission! And silence!

The wives are faced with the (likely) loss of most of the money they have got so used to spending lavishly; cars and drivers and servants at their beck and call; expensive clothes and top-of-the-line gadgets they didn't think twice before buying. And, of course, society putting them under a microscope!

So what can these women expect to hear from their fellow sisters? "Ohhhh... Did you hear about Mrs. So and So? She left her husband! And he's SUCH a charming man. Met him just the other day at that party at Mrs. C's... I wonder now...why do you think she left him? Do you think...(and you can put in any reason that the most over-heated imagination can cook up)".

As for the men, they go into over-drive on the lines of..."Well, now that she is a divorcee, I just have to snap my fingers and she'll come running! After all, she must be soooo frustrated... and looking for you know what!" ask me about it! I was at the receiving end not once but twice!

No wonder Jack Welch's wife took him to the cleaners as did Clint Eastwood's and Harrison Ford's. And, while in India, we can't do as much damage as they can in the US of A, the aggrieved wife is entitled to a very large share of the husband's wealth - money and position that she helped him grow!

So, my words of wisdom to all the women out there: We have only one life, and in some cases a pretty short one, don't waste it on that useless, inconsiderate, selfish, MCP, so-called "high achiever" of a husband who comes home to "mommy" and wails and moans and throws temper tantrums that his Mom should have had the good sense to stop when he was two!

Men whose egos are the size of the Himalayas but deflate faster than a pricked balloon at imagined slights, or just because his wife might be as smart, as clever, as successful or better liked and more popular than he. Men who want to ride rough shod over thoughts, feelings, emotions, norms of civil behavior - who think a wife is along for a free ride, a chattel to be bought, sold or otherwise disposed off depending on the Lord and Master's whims and fancies.

Ladies, it's not worth it! Take it from me. I have been there, done it! And while life has been tough, I have enjoyed every minute of it. And, when the dust settles, so will you. Because you will be FREE!!!!

How does a positive turn into a negative?

All my life people have told me what a bright, chirpy person I am!
Ever-smiling, ever-resilient, always bouncing back like a India rubber ball.
How come we never see you down and in the dumps?
What makes you get up and fight back - in the face of all odds?

Wow, what a strong person you are, people have said admiringly.
Almost a man, one of the boys, making your way without a man at your side...
How do you do it? my friends and colleagues have said with one voice.
In fact if I wasn't a woman, I would have been a man!

I walked out on one marriage, with a two year old in tow.
I was walked out on in my second marriage...
And left holding two babies to grow!
I worked and worked and kept on smiling - or so I am told!
So admirable for a female, they gushed...
To cope with single parenthood while surviving in a man's world.

Then I made my way to other climes...
Where life wasn't always kind.
Jobs came, jobs went - money came in fits and starts.
But we survived and I smiled - and smiled and smiled...

My sons grew up and did me proud.
They supported me when I needed their support...
Now they are young men, making their way in the world...
And I start afresh to support myself, by myself!

All these years I have looked at the bright side of things.
Not letting the nitty-gritty of life do me in...
So why is it now I am accused of being negative?
Is it because I have run out of guts, gumption and grit?

Why do I groan and moan about recalcitrant auto drivers?
Why does the errant ways of my domestic help give me high BP?
Is there any point in gnashing my teeth when the shop keeper doesn't deliver?
Would my reporting him to the cops make a difference to the guy...
Who almost runs me down in his monstrous SUV?

Should I go public when my broadband provider rips me off?
Or the cell phone provider fails to provide?
Now that I have to start afresh without being cocooned...
In the ivory towers of privilege and wealth.
Am I expected to stay positive and keep on smiling regardless?

Boring! Or how I have lost my sense of humour and forgotten to laugh.

I have recently been accused of getting too serious, too negative and too, too boring. Nobody wants to read my pearls of wisdom I believe - though perhaps this could be because I am casting them (the pearls, I mean) before swine? Oops! Maybe I should refrain from calling my readers 'swine' even though they (the readers) have been largely non-existent so far. But who knows... things may improve and my blog could suddenly get a zillion hits and get bought out by one of the really big guys for a zillion green backs. Hope rises eternal...
So what's there to laugh about? Hmmmmmm.....Hey, maybe I have lost my sense of humour after all and find nothing to laugh about in life. Now that is sad!
I have decided to digress... and write random thoughts.
Such as... my gym calling me up to find out why I have been missing in action for the last fortnight!!! Imagine that! They are more concerned about me losing money, and adding to my avoir dupois, by my not gymming than I am - and it's my hard earned dough after all. Very touching and very impressive, don't you think? I think it's because they wanted me to extend my three month membership to a six month membership for an additional 8000 bucks plus change and they had to do it by the 8th of this month. Ha ha!
It's all about the money!!! My bank tried very hard to get me to buy 50 grams of gold (at a discount natch!) because it's considered lucky to buy some form of metal during yesterday and today. Having been persuaded into agreeing (considering it an investment for my so far non-existent daughters-in-law!!!) I hauled ass to the bank this hot and muggy morning to be told I had missed the deadline by 30 minutes! The auspicious time to buy some of the precious metal had expired. I was told in very consoling tones by a very young 24 year old that I could choose to invest in other forms of investment - pension plans maybe???
Babus (bureaucrats) never cease to amaze me. Here we were, wandering around (in 104F heat) like lost souls in Khan Market looking for a Western Union. Having spied the distinctive board hanging above a bank, we went in and asked if we could claim the money sent to us from across the seven seas. No, said a surly old man without even looking up. Why not, I asked? Because we don't do Western Union replied he.But there is a board hanging outside your bank, I protested. So what, said he? We don't do Western Union - board or no board. Go look for another bank! End of matter. I retreated chastened - totally overwhelmed by this attitude that is so beautifully summed up in the phrase "We are like that only!" Long live MTV, who really got to the core of what being Indian is all about!

This and that... about Indians abroad.

Let me admit to certain ineradicable facts: I left this country in 1990 to make a better future for myself and my kids (the fact that I must be, perhaps, the only person in the whole, wide world who didn't make pots of money in the Middle East, in fact lost money, puts me in a league of my own!)has made me, much against my will, an NRI. Whatever I say that is the faintest bit negative about 'shining' India is taken to be pseudo, patronizing, condescending, looking-down-my-nose at patriotic Indians, NRI attitude.
In this blog, I am going to turn the tables and aim at Indians abroad. My fellow travellers who moved West - but have never really left the East.
So, I am going to pose a few conundrums...
Why move West and then spend your entire time there living in Indian ghettos?
If the idea was to go and make a name, place, space for yourself in a world that is modern, forward looking, with better work ethos and far better opportunities - than why close yourself into a space that is a re-creation of your 'mohalla' back home - with the same age-old prejudices, biases, behaviour patterns and outmoded customs?
When you put your kids into the local schools so they can learn and benefit from an education system that offers more while learning to blend into a society that is ready to welcome them, then why build barriers around them that force them into negative religious beliefs, forced arranged marriages and social practices that should have been long buried.
But then again, some of of these NRI travellers are so keen to blend (superficailly at least) that they unthinkingly adopt an accent that grates on the ears - Indian pronunciations overlaid with the most horrible twang, drawl or what have you - and a dress code that attempts to be western on a wide hipped, buxom Indian figure. Think stretch pants and cropped tops with tummy bulging out!!! This I have seen on many a young lady!!!
But the most obnoxious feature I have seen and experienced has been the way Indian entrepreneurs treat their employees - as indentured slaves and servants who are at their beck and call just because they are paid a salary! It doesn't matter how qualified they are, what skills and expertise they bring to the business.
The attitude is "I pay your salary so you have to jump every time I crack the whip because I say so!" And this applies across the board - from small mom and pop stores to large scale organisations. There is no question of caring for the employees problems, no question of considering anything from the employee's point of view. And no question of abiding by commitments made and promises given. The only promises and commitments that should be kept are the employee's - not the employers. People are enticed abroad, leaving home, hearth and security and left high and dry once they are in the employer's greedy clutches. and most of them don't have a choice. They are dependent for their visas on the employer, have loans to pay back and families to support. Should one be brave enough to leave, the employer is bewildered and can't understand the effrontery of the employee's in daring to leave. How dare the 'servant' hold the employer responsible for any dues not paid and promises not kept! Did he not understand that a servant just doesn't do that?
In the 17 years I have lived abroad I have seen how the Italians treat their fellow Italian employees; the way the Greeks, Chinese, Koreans and Hispanics treat their fellow immigrants. But we Indians are in a class of our own! It's very, very sad but very, very true - I speak from personal experience and the experience members of my family have suffered.
So I ask, again, why? Why are we so selfish, so money grubbing, so hypocritical and so uncaring of those we should care about the most?

Expectations!

We are born with them And we die with them... largely unfulfilled in too many cases, I must admit!
A child is born and the parents expect a genius from day one...And that's just for starters! As for the child? He (I am not going through the whole hassle of being PC and say he/she!) expects the parents to put the world at his feet because after all he didn't ask to be brought into this BIG, BAD world!
And it doesn't get any better, any time soon...
The expectations yo-yo back and forth...
The parents: He must get 99.99% in +2. Only then will he get into IIT!
The child: Who wants to get into IIT? I have to go abroad. All my friends are going!
The parents: He must get a good job - in a IT company or a BPO.
The child: Ha Ha! I don't want to get into a boring job... I am going to be a VJ on MTV and meet with all those hot chicks!!!
And so it goes...
And then there are the expectations that go with relationships - whether sanctified by
the church, temple, mosque or synagogue...
He: She should be a sexy but sweet and simple.
She: He should be talk, dark, handsome AND sexy but not look at another woman - ever again (a patent impossibility I have been told!).
He: She should be smart, clever and wonderful in bed and in the boardroom but NOT as smart, clever and wonderful in bed and boardroom as me!
She: He should have loads of cash and go from management trainee to CEO in one fell swoop.
He: She should contribute to the household expenses but I am the bread winner.
She: He should be romantic, take me out to candle lit dinners and woo me with roses - at least once a week!
He: She should hold down a good job and come home to hearth and home on the dot of 5 pm - no working late or going out with friends after work. Who will welcome me home at 10 pm after a hard day's work (and carousing with pals) with a hot dinner and even warmer hugs?
She: I work as hard as he does. So why should I be the only one to cook, clean, do all the housework and look after the kids? That's like holding down 5 jobs - at one and the same time!
He: A man brings home the bacon - isn't that enough?
Nuff said about marriages (relationships) made in heaven!
There are expectations one has of friends, family, jobs, community, the government and one's country...
John Kennedy said (I am roughly paraphrasing this): Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country... And that is where the catch lies, my friends!
From all fiscal indications our country is going great guns! Everyone knows the statistics! But could we ask ourselves whether we live up to the expectations of our country?
Could we, perhaps, live by the rule of law, hygiene and common courtesy? In simple things...
Like maintaining lane discipline while driving (then maybe the BRT would work!)? Like not braking to a stop in the middle of a high speed expressway and killing innocent people. Like not crossing the road anywhere and everywhere the fancy takes us simply because we don't want to walk to the zebra crossing. Like not driving on the wrong side of the road or zipping through red lights.
Like not throwing the trash on to the road because who cares about the road as long as one's home is clean? Like not trying to get one's files moved by judiciously tipping a somnolent clerk a 50 buck note. Like not bopping people over the head (fatally quite often) because they don't agree with you or have the wads of cash you must have, right now.
Ad infinitum, ad nauseum...
Maybe our expectations would be realised if we did our little bit to fulfill the expectations our country has of us! That way we might really find ourselves not just a developing but a developed country - in the near future.

The half empty. half full dichotomy!

Or why is the grass greener on the other side of the fence? Always, but always, what we don't have sounds so much better. We grow up wanting what our friends have and then miss out on what we do have.
Example: When I was growing up (my college years) my parents were arguably the most liberal in terms of who I mixed with and where I went. But I was always cribbing that my friends had more pocket money, more clothes etc, etc. What I did have was a curfew which I considered quite unreasonable, so I failed to notice that I was surrounded by girls who had NO curfew but then, they weren't even supposed to be out, leave alone mixing with guys!
By and large I never had to lie to my parents about where I was going(except once and that was a sin of omission rather than commission and I was gated for two months for that at the BEGINNING of the summer hols!) But most of my pals, they were supposed to be at a girl friends house (mine generally) when they were out with their boy friends!!!
I didn't have to go to such lengths but did I appreciate it? No way!
Then I grew up and went away. Left home for the wild, wild world outside much against my father's wishes. I wanted the freedom, the liberty and the license to do my thing. I did my thing but also had to do without food - no breakfast and lunch most days and dinner only when I was asked out, no warm clothes (Delhi winter), no bed or any other furniture. Why? Lack of financial resources - no Father to pick up the bills, no Mom cooking food to die for!
And right through my life the grass has been greener on the other side. This is supposed to be an incentive to improve and progress... but I am not sure about that. I went to the UK - and then gave up a job there to come back to India. I married twice and then opted out of both - and while I "earned" independence of thought and action, I also sacrificed on companionship and support.
I landed up in New York and London but returned to India because I was going nowhere professionally. Here I am in India, quite happy with my professional progress (after all the movers and shakers in advertising think I am amongst the walking dead as I am NOT under 35!) but totally frustrated by a country where day to day living is a battle for survival and existence, where the minimum standards that make life bearable are not just missing but well nigh unachievable in the foreseeable future.
Everyday I wake up feeling that another day of mayhem and madness will send me around the bend - that I should instantly catch the first flight back to London.
But will I be exchanging one set of problems for another? Should life have taught me not to keep wanting what I don't have? Shouldn't I look at the bottle and consider it half full instead of half empty? Who is happier? The person who is always wanting? Or the person who is happy with whatever he or she has got? Better, wiser, greater men than I have debated this question and have failed to find an answer. Who am I to try?