break their will if not their mind, or do both.

It’s the time for the school pass outs and their parents to freak out, worry about admissions, colleges, quality of courses, cutoff marks, quotas, and the huge question of what will I, or he or she, become, at the end of 3 / 4 years.

There was a time, not long ago, when 18 year olds at the turning points of their lives, were pretty much given no choice regarding their careers. They had obligations; their parents had to face a multitude of fears. They immediately hit for engineering or medicine, or the next closest thing, in accordance with their pre university performances. My parents, and their generation, belonged to this category. I’m going to ignore the privileged, for a bit.

Then came the time, when people started feeling more comfortable in their skins, they started delving deeper into, and boldly choosing to study, fields they actually wanted to know more about, or excel in. This also pushed for avenues of better education in non-mainstream subjects, at least in India. Parents were more inclined to letting their kids experiment a little bit, as long as they did well.

And now, almost as if completing some crazy cycle, we have come back to the stage where parents are once again pushing for the ‘mainstream’. The only difference is that they are now pushing for quality education, as well. Ask them why, the response is, there is job security;  he/she will be assured a pay.

To add fuel to fire, or maybe they are the ones that started the recent fire, there are coaching centers. Ones that think of all students as clay, and have a particular shape in mind that this clay needs to be tortured and molded into, no matter what. Somehow, the more strict, inhuman, stringent, cruel, punishing,  and torturing they are, the more they appeal to the public! The more they are capable of pushing their students to breaking points, the more fame they receive. Their success rates count as well, but only so much.

Privileged now, and privileged then (around 40 years ago), have been different things. Privileged then were rich people, who didn’t have to count on their kids to set them free from the suffering, by adding their pay to the income of the household.  Privileged now, are the kids lucky enough to have parents who think and realize that aptitude and interest matter. The ones who know that pushing them to do something they don’t want to do, or worse, are not capable of doing, would eventually break the person, or atleast turn them into something unrecognizable.

There are a million arguments of success rates of these torture institutions, or of other people choosing for their kids, etcetera. But why is it that we never think about the person they want to become?  I am one amongst those privileged ones, whose parents completely left the choosing to me. I study in a prestigious institution, but not in the field it has gained the name for. The difference between us, and the others who come there to study what the institute is famous for, after almost a lifetime of torture, is palpable.

One of the students who just got shortlisted for the course I pursue, doesn’t know how to convince his parents to let him do this, and not what they think would secure his future. He requested me to talk to his mother, to try and convince her. She has two questions. What will he become after 5 years, and how much will he be earning. I have no answer to these questions.

 As much as the prospective of an assured income, which is on the decline, irrespective of what you study, is an issue, is that all we think about? Doesn’t even the joy of seeing your child excel in something he/she loves, matter to you? Or is there no joy in that anymore?

 I think that’s too damn scary a place to be in.

home is where the heart is? or where my ancestors are?

We’ve all grown up watching that dreamy look, and a small, indescribable smile on our parents faces, as they told us stories of their childhood homes. The mountains or the seas, the trees, their pets, their grandparents, and a million other relatives formed an inseparable part of their lives, and their stories.  They have told us far too many tales of how they celebrated festivals and occasions. I was always awed by these recollections, and have always yearned to meet these people, visit these places.

Vacations, for us who have been brought up outside India, have always been about visiting our parents’ homes, and relatives. When I was small, it never struck me that my parents called these places our home. Oblivious to everything, I enjoyed the sights, the smells, and the sheer joy of visiting new places. But as I grew older, and started taking lots of other things like availability of facilities, the general demeanor of people, cleanliness, and company, into consideration, I realized that these places have never felt like home. They were plain vacation spots to me. Recently, I’ve started making a huge fuss about having to go to Kerala again, for my vacation. My parents’ response: we can’t not go home. Home? What are they talking about? My home is right here.

I was born in this country, I was brought up in this country. I made friends here. I love the food here. I have all my memories here. Bahrain has always been my platform. As much as I’ve never climbed trees or never bathed in brooks, it’s here that I had my first birthday party, it’s here that I love going to the sea. The sea, again, has been a bone of contention, always. My parents have never failed to ask, every single time, how I could like this dead, unmoving sea. Well, this is the sea that I remember seeing, this the sea where I swim, this the sea beside which I’ve spent nights singing, and sitting around fires. My paternal home address is what has been given in my passport. That, and the few memories from vacations, are the only things that tie me to that place. I’m a Malayali in the way that I primarily speak in Malayalam, eat authentic kerala cuisine at home, and am more or less familiar with the culture. But Bahrain, is my home.

Most of us connect with atleast one parent perfectly, these days. Their views and feelings about their homes, perfectly fine. It is their incapability in understanding that these feelings, in the same intensity, are the ones that we have about their homes, that baffles me. And we are not the only ones that are baffled. They have no clue either, as to why we wouldn’t see their homes  the same way that they do. Infact, it’s not their home, but ours! One issue all of us second generation children from countries outside India face would be the question of true identity. We are all, technically, Indians. Not only officially, but also by practice. And yet, our hearts belong to another nation. A place that we call home, but we don’t really belong to. We all go off to other countries to continue our education, and slowly, we get acclimatized to those places. That infinitely strong bond that our parents have with their homes, we miss out on that. There is no knowing if we will ever come back to these countries that we grew up in. I’ve always wondered if I’ll be able to show my children the place I think I belong to.