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“Long straight hair, unshaven face and a checkered shirt that clings on to your body. You've to change all that. You are not a teenager anymore.” I woke up from bed only 5 minutes back and it takes me atleast half an hour to boot-up ( as in computers ) after a good sleep. Dad had summoned me for repairing his laptop and I didn't see that it was a well hidden bait which he knew I'll bite on. I was still wondering how to remove the software FireStarter from Ubuntu, when dad gave that well hidden jab. And to be frank, I took the entire blow on my face. I was startled and silence ensued.
Ettathy ( my sis-in-law who is relatively new to the family ) was feeling more uncomfortable about her presence in the ring. She could sense that its just a beginning of a classical father-son dual and she didn't want to get caught inside the boxing-ring, our living room, when the bout heats up with punches and jabs. “Maybe, I'll go out and stand near the car.” She said that in a single breathe and almost walked out when mom stopped her. “Why do you have to go, molu?” . Uh, mom need more spectators. “May be Soji wants to say something to achan and my presence would make it un-comfortable for him ?” , Ettathy explained. “Aah . Thats because you are new to the situation. Soji is not . You can stay in.” Damn-it , the 'FireStarter' is not showing up in the list when trying Add-Remove Programs. I need another cup of tea. I looked up at ettathy who was on the doors and gave a reassuring smile. “Yeah, you can stay in. Its no big deal.” My cold remark only helped to heat up dad further. “You've to realise that , you don't adhere to the norms set by our society for a 30+ single guy. You look like you are a spoilt brat in some stupid college. How can I tell someone that you are working as in a company, when you don't look like one ?” Dad is throwing punches at me from all sides. Its 'apt-get'. What was I thinking all these while ? I opened a console and typed the command 'apt-get remove firestarter' . Finally my brain is warming up. I took a few steps back and did some hard punches on the air. “So what all do you want from me, dad? I will cut my hair short, apply coconut oil on it and comb it neatly to one side. And yeah, wear a larger than size shirt and walk around ?”. Punches on the sides. Not life-threatening. Not hurting. Only a couple of soft punches. Just enough to convey that I've no interest to remain a sitting duck to his jabs. Mom jumped in as the referee, “Listen to me, Son. All you have to do is take a picture of yourself in this shirt and send it to dad. May be cut your hair a little short. Dad should have some decent photo of yours to convince others to give you their daughter's hand, nah ?”. Thats her way of saying that this round is over. “Mom, you liked this new checkered shirt on me, right ?”. I'm not done yet and mom somehow was expecting that. She worked hard to hide that smile of acceptance, otherwise dad would have straight away made a fuss about a biased-referee. Mom pushed me to my corner of the ring , but I was still shouting. “I know that you like it , mom. But Dad says it makes me look like a spoilt brat. So I have no options. I should wear a larger than size shirt, preferably having the shades of dull cream or off-white . If it has some straight lines in grey or pale brown color, then it would be better. A senior employee should have his full sleeves rolled out and shirt tucked in. I might also consider a well trimmed mustache and clean shaven face, what say ?” I was picturing myself as how a typical parent would like their 30+ single son to look like. “And oh yeah , a chandana-kuri on my forehead.” ( for robert , rachel , miller and others who have never been to kerala - Chandana-kuri is a sandal paste mark you get from temples ) That will make me 'God-Fearing' as how I'm defined in my matrimonial ad. I remember a friend who defined himself as God-fearing in his matrimonial ad. “Is it like you go “aaaargh !!! and get a shock on your face when you go to church?”, I asked him. “Comeon, I cant disclose to the world that I'm Spiritual coz that gives out the fact that I'm an otherwise dull and philosophical guy. Still the fact is, I'm very Spiritual. If you see me on a Saturday evening, I'll be in really high spirits in some pub in Banglore”, my friend graciously explained, “ 'Alcoholic' → 'Spiritual' → 'God fearing' . Its all a play with words.” I quickly logged into matrimonial site and checked my profile. There its written “ .... with modern outlook, yet rooted to traditional family values and very God-fearing...... ”. Now, my only prayer to God is that viewers don't see the “very God-fearing” part. Getting back to the father-son dual, I had nothing to say to dad. He had told me once that his uncles forced him to cut off the 'hippi' hair-style he sported in his younger days. He went straight to the barber and shaved off all his hair. That was my dad's idea of getting back at his senile-uncles-with-pre-historic-views-on-fashion. And I'm his son. Yet I didn't say a word. I've read somewhere that , “By the time you realise what your parents said was right, you will have a kid who begins to think you are wrong.” Previous evening of the dual , I was invited to the Graduation day celebration of my ettathy. She became a Doctor finally. All the dignitaries present in the stage exhorted the ninety two fresh doctors to follow their heart and to not jump into a band-wagon just because others are doing so. The most repeated quote during the ceremony was , “Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”, by Emerson. Chief guest of the ceremony said, “These days , every female doctor who passes out of college wants to be a gynecologist or pediatrician , while the male doctor wants to be a cardiologist or neurologist. What they fail to understand is that , our nation does not require so many specialists. Our nation needs more General practitioners and Family medicine practitioners , to reach the WHO's health standard which says we need 1 doctor for every 1000 people. Unfortunately all our doctors are going for higher studies and specializations, which leaves us with a very few doing public health service. Yes, I know that you won't get a lot in terms of financial rewards but when you are in the supreme duty of providing service to the society, you should not go after money or fame.” The first doubt in my mind when I heard those was, “will he say that to his children ?” . Most parents want their children to go by already set standards. Mr Ayyappan Nair gives elaborate discourse on, how his son got highest marks for 6 years consecutively in the English Medium school run by christian missionaries, but when son grew up, he denies him permission to get married to a Christian gal. “She does not belong to our religion.” . Mrs Thankamma Kurian, sent her daughter for learning dancing and she bagged almost all the awards during school festivals. When daughter grew up, she was denied permission to do higher studies in Fine Arts. “You should join some engineering college or medical college. My daughter is not going to be dancer for the rest of her life.” Talk about hypocrisy. My second doubt that evening was “how many of the young doctors sitting there would actually listen to the words of chief guest?” Fact is , its easy to be a conformist. Just do what others are doing and stay low. But it takes a lot of effort to not follow the existing norms of a society. They are often ridiculed, cajoled and even threatened to conform to pseudo-standards. Its easy to get your ideas and ideologies compromised by constant pressure and brain washing. I've heard somewhere , “A conformist is praised during his life and forgotten after death , while a non-conformist is treated as a problem when alive and fondly remembered and revered after death” Unfortunately, I'm not ready to die yet !! I'm still waiting on my corner of the ring, moving on my toes, punching air and waiting for the bell... waiting for yet another round of father-son dual.
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