Human Oddities

I have quite often found our general behavior odd – be it pertaining to any walk of life.

We will heatedly bargain expending a lot of lung power attempting to reduce the price of a cubit of strung flower by a rupee or the repair charges for mending our chappals or the fare to be paid to a rickshaw puller. But we would tamely pay Rs. 30/- for a cup of coffee with an add-on of Rs. 5/- as tips to the waiter at a star hotel or buy a branded ready-made garment at a fanciful price without so much as batting an eyelid.

Assuming you buy a Conjeevaram silk saree, make sure to buy it only from only certain select shops. Even if you a silk saree of better quality at a lesser price from any other outlet, chances are your neighbors, friends and relatives may give you and your saree a condescending look. The same logic applies when you are buying a piece of jewellery. If you do not want your ego to be punctured subsequently, it is wisdom to buy the only from those select shops already earmarked by the snobbish.

Now you will have to admit your child only into schools which are labeled prestigious. Thus parents go from pillar to post, seek recommendations, pay capitation fees or by whatever name it is now known, and obtain admission into these schools. It is immaterial even if you have to bend backwards, year after year, to meet his or her education expenses. Otherwise society may consider you an under-privileged creature and your child might also develop an inferiority complex.

Even as your child reaches standard X, you must start preparing him for IITJEE and all other common entrance examinations, in total disregard to what his or her aptitude is – as if your child was sent by the Almighty with the sole purpose of developing him into an Engineer. All other course such as leather technology, catering technology, fashion technology, nursing, physiotherapy, sciences, humanities are meant for lesser mortals.

Seeing this trend, a large number of private engineering colleges have sprung up and invariably, every student aspiring to become an engineer can get a seat – or at worst, his parents can buy him or her one.

With Engineering degree becoming increasingly commonplace, the more snobbish feel somewhat peeved and wanting to do one upmanship, send the child to USA for a masters degree and then for him to stay back to become a green card holder.

Several couples are unfortunately childless – but here you see an amusing spectacle that even parents with a lone child packing away their only son to <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:country-region><st1lace>America</st1lace></st1:country-region> or giving away their only daughter in marriage to some well-placed groom in <st1:country-region><st1lace>USA</st1lace></st1:country-region> and returning to a state of childlessness.

If you today choose to attend any social gathering, you are likely to be ignored or sidelined unless you have a son at <st1:State><st1lace>New York</st1lace></st1:State> or a daughter at <st1:State><st1lace>California</st1lace></st1:State> or at least a brother or sister at <st1:State><st1lace>Texas</st1lace></st1:State>. If the present rate of ingress of Indians getting into <st1:country-region><st1lace>USA</st1lace></st1:country-region> continues, may be a century hence a good part of <st1:country-region><st1lace>America</st1lace></st1:country-region> will become ours – a rare form of neo-colonialism.

Although each one of us knows that life on earth is precariously impermanent, we must somehow willy-nilly acquire an apartment; let it be even a rat-trap or pigeon-hole. You must then populate the tenement with a colour television, a refrigerator, a mixer, a grinder, a washing machine – not to speak of a car or at lease a two-wheeler. If you fail to possess all of these then you have insensately wasted the rare opportunity God gave you to live on earth.

A person who was running a modest grocery shop in a nearby area passed away. The corpse was bathed, draped and was put in a sitting position in a flower-bedecked chair, ready to commence the last journey. Meantime, for some unforeseen reason, the funeral had to be delayed by a day. Since the assembled mourners had already finished their quota of weeping and wailing, they gathered around a television set and started merrily watching some latest movie – off and on, laughing boisterously. The underlying principle may be – “The dead is, in any case, dead. Let the living live.

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Dear Jaishree,

Thanks indeed for your appreciation.

Dear Vanaja Srinivasan,

Reforming society is a daunting task.You have summed it up brilliantly
"This question is for our inner self. Each one of us have to find the way out"

Dear Kamalji,

I am terribly overwhelmed by your response. I am only three days old in IL.
I should not aspire for nominations this soon.

Regards
VATSAN

 

Dear Aishu,

Thanks for sharing my concern

VATSAN