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.