Parents
imbibe certain values in their children which they think would help their tiny
tots in becoming respectable figures in the society of hypocrites, well there
do exist a faction of people whom you can call considerably upstanding. The
parents would teach their children to be truthful, honest, kind, merciful,
polite, and the list of “good looking” words goes on until infinitum. The
biggies are hopeful (I don’t know why) that their little ones will suck up all
their teachings and will turn up to be good citizens. Well, it’s their duty, I
know, but isn’t it forceful feeding to the kid about your own ideology and
asking them to absorb your peremptory norms.
Rewind time
and let’s go back to my childhood, where my parents would keep my after
playtime evening time booked for reciting some bhajans or kirtans with my
siblings. Irony is that I liked doing it back then, with my cousins, it was
actually fun to do, walking and singing the bhajans and grinning after looking
into each other’s eyes. And if you ask me to do that now, I will surely hang
myself upside down. Back then I used to do it not because I was spiritual but
because of the fun involved in it and lately I have realised that am not at all
the same.
God, another
word which is slowly evanescing from my assorted psyche, the powerful word for
most mortals in which I used to believe (I still do a little). God, soulful
immortal, my parents told me to believe in, and I did for a long period of time
before my lost and wandering (don’t know for what) mind ceased to think that
god exists. Hit the rewind button again, I used to fold my hands in front of
some idols and pictures, which my parents described as GOD, I believed. God to
me is not more than fiction and talking in Indian context, the Geeta,
Mahabharat and Veds are simply splendid jobs done by fictitious fiction authors.
I maybe wrong here but that is what I BELIEVE now.
Caste, in
India pertains to stigma and the society is pigeonholed into it since ages. Being
born in a middle class Brahmin family, the prejudiced caste system should have
been caricatured in my mind but my family was miles away from it except for one
thing which I will tell later on.
Hit the rewind button (okay, it’s the last time), I received from my parents to consider everyone equal regardless of caste or race and yes I still believe in it unlike a few other things. There were people from lower strata of the society who would visit my grandfather for help or guidance and he would treat them as one of his own, not maintaining a gap called casteism. He/she would be given tea/water in the same cup/glass and no difference was being kept with those people. So growing up seeing what my family believed in, I believed.
Hit the rewind button (okay, it’s the last time), I received from my parents to consider everyone equal regardless of caste or race and yes I still believe in it unlike a few other things. There were people from lower strata of the society who would visit my grandfather for help or guidance and he would treat them as one of his own, not maintaining a gap called casteism. He/she would be given tea/water in the same cup/glass and no difference was being kept with those people. So growing up seeing what my family believed in, I believed.
Who will hit the forward button to know the other one thing? I don’t really have to go back to my childhood to tell you this. I often tell my father (jokingly) that I’ll marry a girl who I like whatever her caste may be; my father will frown upon this and will say that you will have to marry a Gaur Brahmin girl only. My mother and I would laugh endlessly just to see that frowned look of my father and his same old words.
PS: My parents would be vexed if they see this :P
: Avoid typos.
