The legacy of conservative mindsets

The speciality of unconventional writing is in its distinctiveness. I have been thinking for quite some time if I were to write a book. What would the subject be? Whom do I idolize? How it is all going to be? In the persuasion of it all, I started to write several short notes and only few of them saw the near end. I have taken the opportunity to put them on my Blogger and many thanks to those who have well received. I have been a martyr myself in the past and have gone through several changes as part of a conventional upbringing. For some reason, I could not put all the things together and I separate them after I went through my notes.

I have been closely living with several eccentrics but I barely remember them now. I was always fascinated to meet extraordinary people and those who are off the beaten track. The earth’s crust is made up of different people and only few of them look and appear interesting. There could be several reasons to it. I may say this in a prudently manner and with sound judgment. The essentials of time and the factor in which they are achieved are perhaps unique in its own way. We call this perception.

How could one judge a person with complete thoroughness? I strongly doubt it. There cannot be a conventional method or a basis in which they are assumed or arrived. During my formative years, I never had the intensity to examine or cross question the footstep in which I was made to walk. Those were the same years where we were hacked with the religious perils.

The narrow-mindedness and the inappropriateness are so unfitting that it makes one feel that we are walking on the dry ice. I perhaps felt at one point that we are becoming so congenial that we may end up being someone else. My concerns with practical matter thus became very evident. Similar to most of my fellows, I was walking through my father’s footsteps without knowing or acknowledging what was right and wrong. I perhaps had the leverage to conceive my ideas to an extent regardless of its nature.

If I remember it correctly, I wanted to write about my friends, relatives and foes. I’m not sure if this is appropriate. I do not want to be malicious by calling names but I may go close to it. I have no intention to know or write what they are but how and where they influenced me.

In my opinion, confronting or getting in line with the conservative mindsets of the good-old 1980s has been the most difficult task. The conjugation of mediocre forces always makes you feel or believe they are right albeit the actual fact. The flowing stream of forces against one single might be still a big ask. The feeling of intense annoyance created by mediocre minds can be of extreme distress and torment. The younger generation went further in exploring the ocean of joy thus creating a generation gap. This created a whole new vibe.

When did we start realizing this? I don’t know. There is no time or state of matters associated with it. The vibe filled the void and bought immense dissatisfaction amongst the conservative minds. Most of these conservative minds do not wish to be questioned or challenged. They have tried to rule the lines for a long time and do not wish to be disturbed. These conservative minds are mostly elders hailing from a 1980s prime era. Through the colors of wisdom, academic qualification and bank balance was measured to be the key success factor amongst these conservative minds.

Going by what they declare success or failures; success to them means conventional academics with engineering approach (not creative or scientific approach), most preferably a software development job, good bank balance, mostly settle at home without any adventurous habits, day job, travelling bus and vegetarian. These conservative minds even think non-vegetarian eaters are often and mostly aggressive. They fear their life if being questioned or formally objected. They prefer someone who is meek, weak or silent characters. Innovation to them means leading life in most conventional way. They have to be god fearing, respect and just obey the elders and so on.

These conservative minds consider people to be failures or lower in rank when a person tests the limits of life, take an unconventional route, being aggressive, not always silent but questions, do not follow the father’s footsteps and do not pay utmost important to engineering academics. The conservative minds label them as rebellious and outrageous. They ask their fellows to evade such people as if they are going to kill them. This hilarious behavior is often and mostly found in people of the bygone era and also in middle-class families.

There is no specific requisite for being conservative, conventional or orthodox. I was once told that anyone who has not failed has not tried anything new. Going by this saying, the conservative minds stay away from experiments which make them feel insecure or might be at loss. They are normally good at conversation. One who talks to them should feel that they really experience what they speak but they are just distance admirers. These conservative minds do not want to venture into any sort of unconventional lifestyle. Basically, they do not have a strong blood and class of their own. They are mostly dictated by their financial savings, baby-sit their children and attend religious ceremonies. Even from the early age, the conservative minds feed this into their children’s minds so that they meet their expectation.

I have a classic example. A family of conservative minds attends a matrimonial service and demands for like-minded brides. They claim their requirement to be quite simple yet complex. In contrary to what they claim, it is quite hilarious looking at their demands. In most cases, the couples are not allowed to speak. The opinions of the couples are not taken into consideration. The talk or discussion takes place between the elders (conservative minds) of the family and they are mostly likely exchanging demands. The parents of the bridegroom look for the money or property brought by a woman to her husband at marriage whilst the parents of bride have funnier demands. They are interested to know if the bridegroom has attained the highest possible engineering academics, software development job, desk phone, visiting card, travelling bus, own house, bank balance, salary slips, bank statements, passport and finally a complete background verification check which may include DNA tests. The background verification checks are performed on both sides for various reasons which may include past love affairs, religious compliance, neighbor’s ratings and criminal clearance. In the quest of it all, parents of both sides basically forget if the bride or the bridegrooms are going live happily. If the conservative minds fail with their decision, then they blame it on their fate. Mostly they excuse their mistakes to experience.

Once both sides receive positive response from background verification checks (BVC), marriage is agreed upon and takes place cordially. The drama is far from over. The parents of the bridegroom shift their attention from monetary benefits to extending their family. The couples are given exactly nine months after the marriage to dispatch a child. The reason stated in the demand is to extend the family and simultaneously baby-sit at the old age. These are stringent obligations and they expect 100% compliance.

Some software engineers go even further. The moment they get married, they die hard for an onsite visit (at least for a period of one year) so that the wife can deliver the baby there. This automatically provides citizenship to the baby and also qualifies for being a non-resident Indian (NRI). This mostly happens due to their frequent onsite visits. Their wife might have boarded the flight for the very first time but she is merely used for this ugly deed. Some couples plan for back-to-back kids depending on their onsite stay. If not, one of them would be unfortunate and may be born back home. The very minimal expectation of conservative minds is back-to-back grandchildren. The wishes of the couples should be swept aside. They call this effective and efficient family planning.

Most of these conservative minds are absent minded to practical matters. They live in the world of unrestrictive imagination and passing the baton is the only thing they are good at. There are several socialistic problems which are swept aside as they may not bring any benefit personally.

The last thing I want to talk is their great opposition to nocturnal lifestyle. It is assumed from mediocre minds that nocturnal lifestyle is an advert to trouble and is practiced only by irresponsible people.

Jaisimha Besadi

September 06, 2011

Bangalore