Is that so?

Today afternoon, I was having my lunch in Subway with my friend. Yeah, lunch in Subway! The simple reason behind it is our exceptional knowledge of how not to cook. Our frequency of visit to that joint is so high that all three crews (day, noon, and night) know us by name, face, height, and our meals.

Anyway, that is not what I want to write about. In the middle of the food court, young school kids were delivering various performances (singing, dancing, etc). Being their spectator a random thought surfaced in my mind. Now, I am not sure about the contemporary world but when I was a kid (read 10yrs), I was not supposed to dance and sing. The simple reason behind it was my caste. Early morning, I read from Shane Warne’s tweet that an Aussie woman did a boat trip around the world. Aussies are already in the finals for both men & women T20. We are a billion but ironically lacking similar or probably far greater achievements than these.

When our earlier generations existed and caste system was in full form, I am assuming that adherence to caste and its specific domains, was strictly compulsory. Therefore, probably, even when a proprietor’s son had an exceptional voice he could not become a singer because he was not supposed to. The banjaras should sing and dance. The son of a cobbler might have been interested in archery but he ended up stitching the shoes. Similarly, the farmer did not feel education is necessary for his daughter when she might have had a very high IQ.

In the current times, having a decent education and securing a job with guaranteed monthly salary looks more appropriate to parents than any other path. They mold his/her mentality to perceive the world in a similar way. And, they do it so because they were brought up the same way. What to be and what not to be.

Therefore, I wonder if these restrictions and mentalities have restrained us, Indians, from excelling in ever field. Are these the reasons of being a billion but still not being paramount in every domain? Do we beget a grudge inside us because of these reasons? The grudge that all of us father inside. The resentment against society, which we often discourse about but later, let it vaporize. Does it really die or attempts to take you over when you see someone leading that you might have ruled.