....and we are called losers

I remember blogging last month in my blog about the paradox of being Indian . As the dust-laden loo (hold it! i meant the summer winds which are also called 'loo') of Pilani blows through the narrow creak in my door, I reponder about the same thought. How conducive is the Indian society for people who want to take the untreaded path? Maybe mavericks like us might not give a damn to what the society says, but then we have a family to answer to, we have a society to which my family in answerable to.

Let me put things on a clearer plane. First off, lets assume that I am just done with college. I have undergone 4 years of totally useless technical education, because I am as clueless as I was 4 years ago. But now, I feel an urge to give back to my country, my society that has made me the man that I am now. But, what had my family expected of me? Simple.

• Slog and make into the best engg./medical college
  
• Once, I make it there, burn the midnight oil again for good grades
  
• Make it to the best paid S/W job in some company, preferably the ones like Infy or Wipro, so that the neighbors are envious.
  
• Work there for a couple of years, and then marry the chosen girl.
  
• Keep working (day) and (nite as well ;) ) sire a couple of children
  
• And live a life happily ever after.
  

I am so elated that my family doesnt even come close to this. But then, this is how the Indian family system is. If I follow the above regime, I would end up being just another guy in the billion that already exist in this country. NO. This is not how I want to be. This is not how I want anybody to be.

• Making it to the best engg./medical college equips one to a certain extent, but if one doesnt make it, that isn't the end of the world.
  
• Good grades.....For Heaven's sake, give me a break! Now, I know the importance (or should I say mundane worthlessness) of grades.
  
• Just making a job in yet another company. Probably the first step in becoming a ciphers among a billion ciphers.
  
• Marrying the chosen girl, raising a family and living happily ever after. This is fine as long as this happens while one is doing something bigger in life. Something that is worth pointing out and commenting - "Look, thats what I call an effort", "Man! That guy is a 'man' ".
  

The Indian family system rarely gives children the liberty to go against the tide, to become mavericks, to become the chhange that they want to see in the world. Most parents are happy as long as their kids follow the first regime as they grow up. The eternal complacency of Indians, the inability to call a spade 'a spade', the viewpoint that those who dont make it into Infy are losers - a heady concoction to disaster.

Say, if I go ahead and startup right after college not giving a year to what the family says, what the society says and I am somehow mending ways to make a living for a couplle of years building my company. And then Murphy's Law come into play, and my company sinks, it is liquidated. I am bankrupt. The society turns at me and mockingly laughs - "Son, I told you. You should have just made it into Infy and led a happy and easy life". And I am called a loser. When I have the experience of being in a company that died, I know what went wrong. I have the recipe for the antidote to any such imminent disaster in any other company. My antidote is in reality priceless. But here my experience is considered worthless. All they know is that I flunked my studies, didnt make into a job, and hence tried making some small money by starting a company of my own which ended in cold water. Irony! When all I tried was to make this society a better place to live in.

So, the questions raised here are -

• Does the Indian system curb freedom and hence the thought process?
  
• Why are failures seen as outcasts in the society
  
• Why is entrepreneurship seen as a means of making small money to sustain lib\ving and not as an avenue for value-addition to the society?
  

As the sands of time blow across, I pray that these do change and I pray that I am alive to see that India I have always dreamt of.