life is beautiful – growing up – I

when i started writing about my life, i didn’t know that there would be anyone interested to read it. now, it appears that i have a bunch of readers who read these posts with sheer interest. “life is beautiful“, i chose it as the thread topic for such post, which would be based on my life stories, as a tribute to the movie “life is beautiful“. it’s one of the top class movies which tells us, no matter what happens in life, no matter how hard it gets going, you must always keep spreading happiness around. if you haven’t watch this movie. take my advice into consideration, watch it.

life is big and events are bigger, to summarize all and write about them is no easy and small task. so, i decided to sub-divide it into separate sub sections and than numbered the post. so while, in “life is beautiful – the beginning – X” i write about the events which took place when i was too young to understand things, “life is beautiful – growing up – X” would be dedicated to the events which took place while i learned from events but couldn’t possibly argue over them and “life is beautiful – shaping up -X” will deal with events which made me what i am. as and when i start any news sub-series i will update y’all on the philosophy behind it.

today, i want to talk about, shopping with parents. i come from a background where the word shopping doesn’t have it’s exact meaning. in normal world, shopping is a leisure activity but for us it was a chore of life. you don’t go to shopping, you go to buy things. however, you hardly go to buy things for yourself, it’s a ritual completed by the head of the family. he goes out and buys things, be it clothes, cosmetics, necessities, wardrobe, etc… for everyone.

so the point of having your say is kind of negligible. you see daddy has to manage the budget and fulfill everyone’s desires and needs; with a limited budget and fixed amount of money coming into house, desires came last on the list. mostly, desired things were weighed on the scale of need and necessity, compatibility and multiple-uses. i mean, why do you need something from subset a, why not to take it from a universal set. well, sometimes subset elements are better but than elements from universal set are versatile and cheaper and durable.

so, let’s say if you want a light-blue (ocean)  high-neck sweater, you would be suggested to think about its comparison with a normal blue v-neck sweater, which sucks from your point of view, obviously. you would try to argue but it wouldn’t work effectively as you are not going to shop and obviously ‘you don’t know anything, you will do a mistake’ is a frequent line your ears will be feed by. finally, you will get the blue v-neck sweater.

than you grow up a little and you go along shopping. firstly, you would be taken to a place you will not like at all, though, i don’t blame anyone for it, it’s the place which fits the bill and have fixed price. now, imagine for a moment that you like a designer shirt, which will go well with your black trouser. you ask for it and a nod comes in reply for the sake of it. than all of a sudden there appears a blue-check shirt. you would be told that it will go well with your all trousers and you would be reminded of a fact that in some movie some film star wore it.

now, obviously coming from a middle class family, you have been taught one thing, never get into an argument with your elders. now imagine this, you wanna say that you don’t like it but in order to do so, you have to be ready to counter the arguments. is it possible to do so in a showroom? well, from my experience, no. though, if you can do so and if you do so, well no need to write about the catastrophic consequences. finally, you end up getting the same blue-check-shirt.

few years down the lane, constant pressure from your mom on your dad to get you things you like results into a phenomenal activity, you get to go with your dad to shop things of your choice . though, it’s more or less the same shop and same collection. again, you like a black shirt, you sister suggested you about it before you left house for shopping. so, you pick it up and ask your dad to buy it for you. as usual, dad talk about all the things and try to divert your mind to the creme-shirt.

you become a bit adamant so for a change he buys the black shirt for you. now, you get the bill done and get it packed and you are very happy. you come out of the shop to go home. here starts the real thing which made me write this entire post. dad points out at some random boy, who, to your screwed-up luck, is in the same creme-shirt you left behind and to worsen the matter, looking good as well.  imagining that some people have really fucked up luck, so guess what, a few minutes later daddy points on someone who is in the same black shirt you bought and to your luck he is or looks like a lofar.

anyways, you still try to convince yourself. come-on, it was just one off day. that’s all you can do, what else you can do. you will listen to so many logics on your way back home that by the time you reach home, you would be wanting to burn this black shirt and go roam naked if need to. it doesn’t end here though, as soon as you reach home, mum and sister ask you about the things you bought, when they see the shirt. wow!!

starts again, dad says “what is there to wow about? there were so many good shirts but your “sahabjaade” wanted this piece of crap. i don’t understand which kind of taste he has got, senseless, tasteless, style-junk, who doesn’t know anything”. in short, you are being realized that “you are good for nothing“. it doesn’t end here, anytime in future someone good would be seen in the creme-shirt or someone bad would be seen in black-shirt, you would be reminded of this.

next time onwards, whenever you go out for shopping you will never ask for what you want. you promptly will ask you dad for something he likes for you and you would express your feelings that this is the best thing in the world you can get. after-all you wouldn’t like to go through the same turmoil again.

one of the guys who knows my profession side real well is v. balaji, he often asked me about the origin of one of quality of “not giving any option which won’t get my work done to any subordinate”. i couldn’t answer it first but when balaji met my father, he figured himself. now, i also know it. those sessions which happened with me very often made me realize this. even though my father said “i never force him, he is free to do whatever he likes” while i was growing up. it actually meant that i was free to choose either of option 1 or option 1 out of two options.

for instance, there were biology and maths to be chosen from. knowing that i didn’t know anything else than (if i knew what i wanted than i would rather have chosen numbers or words instead of mathematics, there lies my natural talent. more of it later.) and i hated biology. i had two options to choose from “maths” and “biology read maths”. so i selected maths. see the beauty of it. i am sure if my dad would have been a manager of any information technology’s multinational. bill gates, steve jobs and eric schmidt would have been asking for mercy.

you know what i meant. you eventually choose what is there for you selected by him, both options are same. it really doesn’t matter what you choose, you are going to do what he wants. reality is, that times goes by, you grow up to buy things yourself for you. now, you realize that you simply don’t know how to buy something. well, guys, welcome to the world…