I was crossing a road in Bangalore. Was just close that, I would have hit by a bus. But somehow I managed and went far away from the road, as well as the bus driver's hardcore speech. What if I was dead? Well so many of you will be happy. That's the other part. But I had some other thoughts, which made me crazy.
I was brought up in a middle class family. Basically in a middle class family, the level of your education is directly proportional to the debt over your family. And this doesn't stop over there. In some stage, the family will depend entirely on you. Once you finished your studies, you have to take them to your shoulders. My shoulder has got a lot of weight by the way. I am damn sure, its weightier than the weight of your school bag.
These are things that came into my mind in ".ppt format", while I crossed the road.
1. I have to take care of my younger brother's studies.
2. Have to repay the education loans and debt over my family.
3. Have to build a house.
This is the small sample from my shoulder. If you want to know remaining things, you need to have a look at my shoulder. Fine let me come to the point. You don't even have the right to die. Indirectly these duties makes you worry. So many questions will arise in your mind. Who will look after my family, If I die? What will happen to my brother's studies? Will he manage? From then, you will be very careful. You will start fearing about your own death. When we were in school, we never thought of these things. Even if a bus would have hit you slightly, we just cry of pain. We don't fear for the death and followed cause. But after 18 years old, you will start thinking of responsibilities.
Its all the Indian culture which makes us bound to the family. We call it, Bandham. In my case, its the duty of a son. Similarly there are father's duty, mother's duty, sister's duty, uncle's duty, night duty etc. So until you die, you will be wearing different hats with the same surname "duty". You can't simply ignore these duties. Normally you won't. Its because, you are not american. You are not from american or western culture, where people doesn't bother about these things. You are born as Indian, its in your blood and you have no other way. You have to do it and because of it you cant even die by accident. And you have to worry a lot about those duties, like me. And you Indians who commit suicide, how the hell do you do that man.
But if you look that in different way, its lovely to have such burden. Once my brother finishes his higher studies, my mother will be proud that I helped him. My father and brother will be proud as well. They will be happy to say to everyone that, my son helped my son. Similarly when you finish your duties one by one, your parents will feel proud like anything. This is where Indian culture stand aside from other cultures. It makes you to be in tight relationship with your family. Those duties are not burden. Those are not duties. They are lovely wishes which we does ourselves. Our parents never force us to repay their debts. Even if you don't help your brother to finish your studies, your parents will do that. Your parents wont curse you for that. But we ourselves come forward to help our siblings. We ourselves come forward to repay their debts. We ourselves come forward to build a house for our parents. If we look deeply, basically those duties are our own wishes which we had in mind sometime earlier. Later due to some terms, we think those wishes as duties. This is where I am proud of Indian Culture and proud to be born under that culture.
Clearly to say, I still have fear for death. Because I want to complete my all wishes before I die. I love to load my shoulder with so many wishes. I still wish to have a wish for my family. I still have fear for death. I wouldn't have thought of writing this article, if I crossed the road safely. Moral :: Follow the Traffic rules.
