When a child is born, the first question is if the baby is a boy or a girl. If the child is a boy, the parents start saving for higher education. If the child is a girl, parents start saving for her marriage. Everyone wants their kids to be prodigies.

I’m amazed by the amount of coursework a 4-year-old has. The rat race has begun, with teachers and parents coaching the kids to be Olympians in academics. For the school, it’s the board results that matter; for parents, the child needs to perform better than the neighbor’s kid. Any kind of reading or activity that doesn’t contribute to academics is frowned upon and strongly discouraged. For exams, kids are asked to cover up their answer sheets carefully, lets someone else sees the answers and scores more marks. There is zero importance given to learning; the focus is on hacks to score more. Then comes the chase after coveted seats in prestigious institutions. It’s a prestige factor for parents in their circles. They are willing to spend any amount of money to coach the kids or simply buy off seats.

The education phase is the first of four marathons. Next is the job. The chase after the coveted white-collar job in a corporate or a public sector company. Kids from business families get the unfair deal at this point of time; it’s bonded labor for them. Once the job is in hand, it’s about promotions and hikes, either in the same company or elsewhere. There is no thought of meaningful or organic career growth.

We need to bump up our market value to start off the next marathon from a higher base. Here too, the single-minded focus is on beating the competition. Parents want to brag about their kid’s career trajectory. There is little or no time to work on personality development or acquiring knowledge. None of that is a priority. The only thing that matters is how much money we are hauling home, the car we drive, the house we buy.

Now it’s phase 3, hunting for the ideal equally successful partner from the same community, from a family of good traditions or brand value. Parents go all out, armed with digital solutions in the form of community-wise segregated matrimonial portals and other networking tools!

This is a task that needs to be completed in a time-bound manner to stop awkward questions from arising, the fear of being looked down upon by the rest of society, etc. Somehow this task is railroaded through, and the final lap has begun. Parents set up the dollhouse and watch the dolls they nurtured all their lives perform under their watchful eyes, gleaming with pride. The one last detail which marks the end of phase three is the grandchild project. Everyone fervently hopes for the next boy child, the torchbearer of the next generation of dummies.

Phase 4 is the kids themselves becoming parents, and repeating whatever their parents did with minor changes considering the changes in circumstances in society.

It is this vicious circle that ensures that we will never come out of the dark ages because the people have no time to be enlightened. People have no time to work towards the collective good of society; people are too busy conforming to the archaic norms of society.

Free thinking is a threat to the established order; nobody likes to work for privileges that they already get for free. I guess if there is something that’s not going to happen here in my country, it’s change. Because people don’t want to change/ afraid to change. Change hurts?