Parent's Trap

Currently, I am halfway thru reading the book ‘Go Kiss the World’ by Subroto bagchi. In this book, Subroto bagchi chronicles his life from a small town in tribal Orrisa to setting up Wipro’s American business to becoming an entrepreneur while he was still in his forties.The book is divided in three section. The first section deals with his early childhood and education. I am  still on second section where he has delineated his professional life from a Management trainee to selling software. 

I picked the book because, like Subroto bagchi, I too come from a very small town. However, I still have long to go in my career before I can recount my tale saying how such and such things influenced me. Oddly enough, the reason for this post is different.  Mr. Bagchi recalls how his parents, brothers have influenced him and shaped up his values.

If I ask myself how much if my parent I see in me, I would say a little. But if you ask me a different question, how much of my parents I want to see of in me; the answer would be none. Not because I hate them, or dislike them but because they have never been close to any role model I could have envisaged while I grew up, or even now for that matter.

I have been told that every one has an image or an idea of a person who they like to be like, emulate or just follow in his/her footsteps. Every MBA aspirant is asked to prepare this question before an interview. I had done it too, but we will come to that later. By the way, the favorite and most clichéd ( at least I find it clichéd ) role model for Indian students is Dhiru Bhai Ambani. What psychologists tell us is that our choice of role model tells a lot about our personality, especially the values which are closest to our heart. For instance, if someone has Kiran Bedi as their role model, this would signify they value honesty, bravery above all. Dhiru Bhai Ambani would stand for ‘wealth creation, Narayan Murthi would stand for ‘ethicaly making money’ and so forth.

I didn’t know this whole theory of values being hidden or rather manifested in the choice of role model one chooses. Therefore, I had done my selection based on whatever little I knew of the world by then. I had decided that my choice had to be not just politically correct, but also a little different. Zara hatke, you know.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to think that hard and I chose a role model who was not very well known but she was different and really represented what I wanted to embody. My role model was Aruna Roy. When I got to know about the values theory, it struck a big chord with me because I immediately knew what value I admire most.

Sacrifice: that was what I admired most. ( I am using past tenses because this was all happening five years back. I may or may not hold the same opinion now)

Now, after a rather long detour, the way I keep making, this book again made me think. Will there be anything about my parents that I would have to tell when I start chronicling my life. Things on how my parents were so great, how they instilled many great values, or what my mother told me as a ten year old kid had stayed with me all the life. The truth might be a little different. I was sure about it five years back, and after becoming saner and more mature in these last five years, I can confidently say that there has been no life lesson that I had imbibed from my parents. Except, yes there is a small matter, because I always like to give credit where it’s due, let me add I am thankful that my parents never harbored any communal feelings towards other religions which has made me quite pro muslim and tolerant. But this is more like the medical ethic: “Do no harm". So, I don’t give them much credit.

In India, especially, there is a tendency to hero worship our parents. I don’t know whether this stems from lack of objectivity or simple fact. But more often, I find the former case a bit stronger. We all as human beings don’t always remain rational, and see things thru a tinted glass when it comes to our personal lives. This might be true in the reverse case as well, where some one like me becomes excessively belligerent instead of becoming fond of his/ her parents. The point is it's difficult to have a balanced objective view point of two people we are closest to.

I always disliked when other kids talked about their parent in reverence. I used to believe everything they said about their parents at face value and compared that to my parents. My parents had too many weaknesses. Weaknesses that they never made any effort to conceal or even temporarily hide. It was all too open. Every one knew about it. They even started rejoicing in it. It was not as if they were distant or I didn’t love them. It’s just that I could never revere them. Because all their faults, weaknesses, pain and foibles were too obvious to me. I couldn’t start pretending that everything was normal in my household. But it was very normal to live in an abnormal house because you never knew the other way, the way I wrote about it here.

It was tough to be different. But western world is full of such stories where we don’t have to deduce a person’s success/ intelligence from his pedigree. Steve Jobs is a great example of that. I just hope that someday I also get in a position to advise people to get off their baggage.