Valarpom Thannambikai Serial - 2

Thanks Sudha!

Dear Sudha,
We spend a lot of time choosing what to do and relatively less time in doing it. I wrote this piece to reverse the time allocation.
Of course one has to love his job. That love would come easily to a poet, an actor or a painter. But for an engineer or accountant to love his job, it requires some mental re-orientation.
It is easy to come across great personalities like Kamal where their love for their profession is public information. It is very rare to see a motorcycle mechanic, a tinker, an accountant, a plumber loving his or her job. I had the blessing to see such persons which had an impact on my life and thinking.
This piece is my way of expressing thanks to those rare specimens.

regards,
sridhar

 

Sorry Varloos, I didn't see your post earlier!

Dear Varloo,

Or should I say VarElakshmi? I liked the way in which you expressed your pride about your name insisting that everyone should say it right.

Sorry Varloo for I missed out on your post earlier.

I dont subscribe to this engineering or medicine lunacy. It is really inhuman to make a child read a whole four year or three-year course simply because it will get a good salary, without giving a damn to the child's preferences.

As Malathy has very rightly pointed out we should always explore new avenues like the whale trainer.

What you do is not important but how you do it determines your health and happiness. Unless the world wakes up to this fundamental fact we will be having depression, psychosomatic illnesses and even suicides.

Thanks for the participation, Varloo.
Sorry once again for missing out on your post.
regards,
sridhar

 

Thanks Jothi!

Dear Jothi,

You have brought home a wonderful point. Indian parents are sort of restless when it comes to their children's careers and marriages. They want to finish them very soon and then lead a relaxed retired life.

India had a problem till now. There was scarcity of jobs. One had to grab whatever one comes her way. We did not have the luxury of waiting for the job we loved to do.

One of my classmates got a job in bank when we were doing our B.Com. He quit studies and took up that job. I felt sorry for him. He would have shone as a brilliant accountant. But now toiling away long hours as a bank officer. With a not so happy family surroundings.

We should let our children decide on their career. The most important thing is that we should allow children to change careers. Once I administered a 16PF Psychometric test on a final year Engineering student. Found out that she was hopelessly unsuitable for the engineering profession. Called up her Dad who is my friend suggesting that she should change course straightaway. Because she was artistic and highly social minded.

But many parents advise their wards to finish whatever they had started. The problem is many children find out their right career only when they are neck-deep into a wrong career.

Career choice is widening up in India these days thanks to the tech-boom and globalisation.

Thanks for the participation, Jothi.
regards,
sridhar

 

Dear Kamla,

Well said, once again. What I said about social security systems is true. I am handling the US Pension System here and for my work I need to have an overall picture as well.

In India we do not have an organised social security system as we have in the West. But the great institution of Family takes care of that very crucial aspect. You will be surprised to know that dignatories from some European countries visited India to study the family system, especially the Joint Family system to explore the possibility of replicating it in their countries.

But at the Government level we have the Employees State Insurance Corporation which takes care of a very small part of the social security needs.

Government Employees get some pension and their dependants get a family pension.

I do agree with you that NRIs down there do not have the luxury of toying with their passions when it comes to careers. But honestly, Kamla, only those who are able to get on to the job they love have reached greater heights, whether they are NRIs or Desis.

All these constraints are only in the mind, Kamla. This is at the ultimate level of analysis. All our limiations, our blocks are in our mind. All those who got the careers they loved to had all these limitations and still took a plunge. They were rewarded. Bill Gates worked on his passion which was computers. He dropped out from Harvard. The Google founders worked on their passion which was a search engine in spite of all professional advice to the contrary. They were not very rich people to start with.

Narayanamurthy though selected for IIT could not go there because he had no money. But surely he had a vision and he worked on it.
There is no need you need to start early in life.
I will tell you the story of an eye-doctor in Madurai who worked for the Government.
He retired when he was 56. That was 1976. He started a trust in the name of his father and mother. It was called Govel Trust. Govindarajan and Velammal were the names of his parents. The trust opened an eye hospital in Anna Nagar, Madurai. Soon it spread to other places. He started conducting eye-camps in the surrounding villages. He has done so far a few million eye surgeries.

The hospital he founded is now a world-class institution. I am proud to say that it is in Madurai and is better known to the world as Aravind Eye Care System.

The name of the Founder is G.Venkatasamy. He died last year. He was in his late eighties.

Thanks Kamla for making me think.
L.,
sridhar

 

Dear Sridhar,

If all the our parents let their children choose their careers then we will definitely have more artists, sportsmen, dancers, musicians and many other professions, some poeple might think of as hobbies rather than careers.
My SIL's son is a very good sprinter. He is very interested in sports. He appeared for his +2 exams last year, but to the disappoint of his parents scored like an average student. My husband and I knew that he could come up in his life even without an engineering degree, but my SIL was very stubborn on getting him a BE degree. So she got him a seat paying a few lakhs which was way out of her financial status by all means. I told her to encourage her son's atheletic skills but my words did not make any difference.
If kids like him are encouraged to follow their dream and interests in India we will see a lot more gold medals in Olympics just like the western countries.

Regards,
Jothi.

 

Point Well-made, Jothi!

Dear Jothi,

You have a good point there. Yes, children should be encouraged to pursue their own interests.
My daughter did not get very good marks in her plus two. All her classmates flocked to engineering and medical colleges. She told me that she was going to study literature. Go ahead, child. It's your life and your choice. That was my response.
But the moment we announced the decision to the outside world hell broke lose. Everyone was talking to me as if I had committed a blunder. Some even offered to get me an Engineering seat at half the going rate. I was amused. But my daughter was not. I told her if you are going to listen to others you will never make any good decision in life.
However for her sake I took her to a retired English professor who is our family friend. He said matter of factly that there is no difference between Engineering and English Literature.
I told her that this is not the final decision as far as her career was concerned. If she wanted a change after three years, yes, she can have it. And she did want a change. Refusing the PG seat offered to her on a platter she chose to do her Masters in Social Work. Even this may not be the final twist.
The Keeping up with the Joneses mentality is most brutally manifest in the career choices of children.
I can only pray for your sil and even more fervently so for her gifted son. May God help them.
If not for winning Olympic medals at least to have a happy life the boy should be allowed to do what he loves to.
Thanks Jothi once again for your enthusiastic participation.
regards,
sridhar

 

Dear sridhar,

Keeping up with the Joneses attitude is definitely playing an important role in the kids career choices these days.
Thanks for your prayers. I really hope that my SIL's son will be happy in his life too.

Regards,
Jothi.

 

Varalotti,

Apologies for being way behind in posting 'feed-backs'!:mrgreen: Giving priority to those posters who extended that courtsey to me!!!!:mrgreen:

Read this snippet just now. Thanks to Mrs Chithra for posting it. :2thumbsup:

Your essay is well sketched, as usual the style and language compel the reader to gone on till the end, and then go back to enjoy the second reading further. You are tres gifted, Varalotti, to say the least. And now you have a prize to prove it too!!!!:yes:

I read the piece repeatedly to cull out the life's lessons that I could imbibe. I could get pointers towards parenting (guiding children's activity choices), towards perefction and mediocrity. I come from Kerala, where the standard goal of any SSLC student is to become a doctor. Be it a bio whiz kid or one who cannot distinguish a leaf from a fruit- the aim is the same. I often wonder why students in Kerala do not want to become bank officers, teachers- they do end up in such professions but only cos they stumble into it. And I realise that this goal is largely given by parents- parents lead their life in proxy getting their children to aim for what they themselves could not achieve in life. In that direction, the words of Kamal's mother are so profound and wise.

My Tamil is sketchy, so I assume 'padaipattral' is creativity?

Mediocrity is the worst sin of all times. Have you seen the movie Amadeus? While on one side it is about Mozart's God given genius, on the deeper sense it is all about mediocrity and how it can make a man's heart mean and malicious.

I can sense a great book in these snippets.

regards
Vidya

 

Thanks Vidya!

Vidya,

Thanks for your FB. We writers thrive on Feedback and comments and shrivel in an atmosphere of indifference.

So we welcome FB however late it may be. As a race we prefer negative FB to no FB.
In this context I need to thank you and all the ILites who feed me with their feedback.
(Incidentally somebody told me that FB does not have a plural as "feedbacks" as the word feed in itself is plural.)

Thanks for the nice words you have on that piece. Incidentally this went in as a sample piece to the paper and this decided the fate of the entire serial.

Yes, you are right padaippaatral is creativity. padaithal is creation. And padaippaatral is the creative force.

Well about the existence of movies like Amadeus I am perfectly ignorant of. People like me, people of my age, living in places like Madurai are more familiar with movies like Aayirathil Oruvan and Maatukaara Velan than these movies. Another drawback is that I cant understand the Hollywood dialogues. So while my daughter was enjoying the movie 'A Beautiful Mind' I spent a week reading the book on the same title by Sylvia Nasser.

Please let me know if there is a book which has that story. Will love to read it.

Yes, your sensing of a book in these snippets is perfectly right. I have already talked to the publisher about it. He is excited about the project.

Thanks once again for the FB.
Varalotti