I’m 19-plus, soon to be 20, and I’m scared to grow up.
So many responsibilities, obligations, commitments. I don’t know anything about finance and banking except to use the ATM card. I just know to withdraw, but how and where can you deposit? Never really had to bother about it. “Dad, I’m on zero balance”. “Ok, I’ll put it in tomorrow”. See, as easy as that.
Shopping sounds so easy. But it’s not. Trust me, I don’t know the difference between silk and cotton, and whatever is chandheri ? Most often I’m flabbergasted when I go for saree-salwar shopping with the older ladies. Everything looks good and fine, and long-lasting they assure you. But it’s not so. See, you will have to be shrewd when it comes to these things.
The most I spend in the kitchen is when I’m hungry, and I am ashamed to say I don’t cook. What is that tasty thing along with banana chips you eat at the Onam sadhya made of? And how do you know in what way a particular fish is to be made into curry? Cooking is truly an art. An acquired taste. Mum always asks me to help in the kitchen, but I don’t. Unless she says otherwise I don’t get food. It’ll be something like peeling onions or cutting beans. It isn’t compulsory anyway.
Within about five years I’m bound to be a homemaker and a cook myself. I am terrified. What’s going to be the reaction of my in-laws when they realise the only delicacy that their sweet little baby is going to have for awhile is packaged noodles, bread and jam, oats and cornflakes. Humour me.
I don’t know how to check the main switchboard when power fails, or to change a bulb that’s burnt out. I don’t have any freaking idea about scooter engines and its possible reasons not to start, apart from the theory I learnt, thanks to basic mechanical engineering.
I don’t know where to pay water tax, or what a PAN card is for. I know of some seniors who got jobs soon after college and went up north. What will be my plight, when I’m not even allowed to go to the city in my southern State by myself?
You just can’t use and throw clothes, can you? They’re not disposable. What about laundry? How do you know if a particular fabric runs colour or whether it is to be hand-washed or given a delicate spin? So if you have washing powder and then washing soap, what use are fabric softeners and so on? When is starch used? Bless the stars for making me want to stay in a hostel, otherwise I would have had to learn the art of washing clothes later too. And do women actually have to wash other people’s clothes, including undergarments? What the hell! That’s gross.
I don’t think I’m mature enough to work in a multinational company. All of them look so serious in the movies. I lately realised that placement alone won’t get you a job, rigorous tests and schooling follows. There’ll be remedial classes for the failures. And I’m to compete with my seniors, juniors and all my brothers and sisters worldwide. The freaking programming geniuses.
I really don’t know what I want in my life. I might be able to work in a cubicle five days a week for a while. What about later? How long will it be before I get tired of it? I’ve always wanted to teach and do a bit of social work. My idea of teaching, was small kids. But when I mention teaching to others, they pat my back and enthusiastically tell me to pursue an M.Tech. Seriously. If I could just stop studying after B.Tech, I would be happy to do so.
I think I’ll be able to go on for a while about all the things that scare me and make me question my very existence. Else I could always have an optimistic mind and the will to embrace new things while learning and unlearning. It all comes down to you, how do you choose to see and perceive things? Brace for the worst or find yourselves left out in the race we call life.
kj.gopika@gmail.com
