- Very Good (or)
- A complete disgrace to your entire family ( and their neighbour's sister's mother-in-law's milkman ) < Private joke
This is the post where I thank all the idiots in the world for making life slightly harder. It's a strange thing to say but if you're an Indian who is between the ages of 12 - 21 then you've probably had to suffer from the mistakes of others. Or have been compared to someone who is excelling, making your good marks look pathetic... Yes , the tried-and-tested method of raising a child that we all swear is never going to happen when we have kids .
Our moms love saying , " If you don't do ABC ( a random thing that was pulled out of nowhere ) then you'll end up like Mrs. So-and-So's daughter: Pregnant and out of a job at her age. " . Firstly, Mrs. So-and-so's daughter is usually some delinquent who dropped out to do drugs and secondly she probably doesn't exist . They say things like that to scare you into excelling . Which I have no issue with ( they want the best for us and are terrified that our lives will go to waste ) . Well that and making you study like you're gonna be a human library.
I do, however , think it's slightly strange how they use every single case of Idiot-girl-met-psycho-on-the-Internet (dot dot dot ) and use that as sufficient evidence to get scared every time they see us updating our status . I think that our parents should give themselves more credit . They raised us right , they should have the hope that maybe we won't get Human Trafficked or married to some "thug " . If I were a mom ( which won't happen for the next decade of so ) I'd probably be the same . Over-protective and enthusiastic about everything academic in my child's life .
We try hard to please them and be Very Good , the amount of girls who take the Physics-Bio-Accounting course will attest to that . ( I am luckily not one of them - My parents are cool with my chosen career path ) . They'll all end up being Doctors , Engineers and Accountants . Making their parents feel that the sacrifice was worth it at the end . As much as we wish that our parents would be laid-back , allow us to traipse in and out of the house whenever , and allow us to do things the way we want - We should remember , at the back of our minds , those people we were warned about ( Like Mrs. So-and-So's daughter ) , are probably real , somewhere . Maybe she wasn't pushed hard to succeed and allowed to take the easy way out . It's a cliche that they do this because they care , but it's a cliche because it's true . They would like to let us do what we want because they can see how unhappy we get sometimes but they've lived it and getting off easy just doesn't work .
We hate the constant comparisons about a realative's smarter child who is getting 100% for everything . It's not because they want to belittle us , it's just their way of saying , " Make meproud with your best , " . When they tell us not to wear that see-through shirt or short mini-dress , it's because they know how our mistakes will be on our track record for a long time . I'm usually very cynical about it but in retrospect , maybe they had a point .
One day , we're gonna look back and thank our parents for making us Very Good .
