Pretentious world

Pretension is one of the less talked about gift of development. As people prosper or as they get polished, they inevitably get pretentious. Or do they? This does look like a norm at least to us city dwellers. But you only have to look so far as our small towns and villages to see genuineness  still preserved in thoughts, talks and actions.

I spent 5 years of my childhood in Jodhpur (also happens to be the best part of my childhood). We used to live in a rented house. It was a double storeyed house. We used to live on the ground floor and our landlord used to live on the first floor. Our landlord was a police officer originating from one of the nearby villages. Our landlady was basically a village woman. She had very recently moved to Jodhpur when her husband got transferred.

Few months ago, I went to Jodhpur with my family. While we were there, we visited our old house. And fortunately we met almost all its residents. We met the two girls of the family who are now married with a child and  were visiting their home for few days. We met the youngest son of the family whom I could barely recognize. His elder brother, who also got married was however in the village with his wife.

As we sat in the drawing room, the son brought us some water in a steel pitcher. No glasses and tray. It looked a bit 'unsophisticated'. Next we knew, the daughters were showing us their marriage albums. All the while, our landlady was talking about her family. She talked about his elder son, how he got involved in untoward things and is now living in a village doing farming. All this in a very matter-of-fact tone. No hiding facts or justifying things. No shame in acknowledgment either.  As we were leaving, the landlady gave my mother a hug. Since when do we greet goodbyes in this fashion? My mother later told me that this how they do it in villages.

It all looked so plain and simple. I actually believed them when they said they felt happy to see us after this long. And after that brief interlude, I was back in my world.

Expectations !

How we always hear things about life not being so easy for the fairer sex. But sometimes, things can get difficult for boys too(I use boys and not men for the simple reason that I don't feel like a grown up yet). Not that I have much to complain about with all the freedom and so little scrutiny accorded to us for most of our lives. But still, there are times when I feel burdened by the expectations - expectations from the son of the family, from a to-be husband of a household.

Many of these expectations are borne by myself only without anyone imposing them. My family and father in particular have always given me all the freedom to do what I like and pursue what I dream. The expectations are more of a result of the learnings from the society, toeing the line set by the culture and tradition. The expectations are what I have from myself. It is the society which expects a man to earn for his family and I expect the same from myself. I guess this is why I had sought for a partner who could support herself - it would relieve me from an expectation.

I have had this wish since a long time to leave everything behind, to just go to some remote scenic corner of this country and stay there till I get bored of it. But I don't think that this wish will ever materialize. It will possibly remain that regret that people have about the things that they haven't done and that which they so desperately wanted in their life.

PS: I am getting married next year in February. Any one caring to read this post is by default invited :)