LAISSEZ FAIRE????

I had recently read “Paths of Glory”, Jeffery Archer’s latest. The book was a tribute to George Mallory, a Cambridge Professor, who was the first mountaineer to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain peak, Mt. Everest. Ironically this feat is not being accepted by most of the mountaineers.

Mallory was a great mountaineer and visionary in his period.Whether or not he reached the summit before he died remains a subject of speculation and continuing research, but his perseverance to pursue what gave him the utmost satisfaction has to be appreciated.

After completing this book, I realised that most of the times we carve for recognition for all our doings. We want to be accepted by others … But in this whole cycle we are letting go of our principles in a jiffy. Individualism is long last and we blindly trod down the steps which others want us take. Take for instance, the number of Engineers graduating every year… do census half of them would have taken up engineering just because their parents wanted them to do. Many of us have acclimated ourselves just to fit in the boundaries drawn by the society. You do something different people think there is a problem with you cerebrum.

Women are even more prejudiced by this society when she has to make choices. Unfortunately we do not have choices offered. We have stringent restrictions placed on what we are “supposed” to do rather than our likeness to do things (at least in India!!!). I would say I m lucky enough to do what I like but there are numerous less fortunate girls who are made mere puppets with the society . Why is that we always have to bare the brunt of this society???? Can we not take decisions for our own self??? Don’t we have our own identity???

There was a match box factory near to my dad’s place in a small town called Kaveripatanam. Most of its employees were girls from 7 to 18 yrs of age. Once I had the opportunity to talk to one of the girls working there. She was only 10 yrs old (same as me then) but what she said made me realise this truth in its crudest form. She was a drop out from school, started working in this factory to support her family though she had the flair for studying and wanted to do her schooling. It was then I conceived the fact that your identity depends on a lot of external factors and not you (though at a later point of time).

This is just an example where a girl’s identity is getting electrocuted and her individual wish takes a back seat. There are lot many situations where we are always forced to make the sacrifices. This sometimes makes me feel that we are the frailer ones……

I only wish we get an answer to this!!!!!!!!