What if one day, you tell your parents that you want to quit engineering because you want to study English literature, and take writing as a career? Tell them that integrations and 3-D geo are completely out of your scope?
Don’t know about your parents, but after a year of studying in one of the most prestigious engineering colleges of the nation, Deeya’s parents won’t let her back out.
It was mid May, and unlike all ISC and ICSE candidates, she too was waiting for the results. Though there was a difference, Deeya’s waiting for the results was in no way related to her own boards. She already passed her boards a year back with a good score. She also managed to score quite well in JEE Mains which made her engineer father quite sure about making his daughter an Engineer!
But Deeya wanted something else. Engineering was the Last thing she would have wanted to take up as her career. She always loved Literature. Being a writer was her passion.
But then who would tell her father about that?
If Deeya had refused, her parents would have started tantrums like we have already spent so much for you. Ya “Engineer hoyeo lekha jai” ya the most famous one ” Hitk thk beriye keu placement na peye thake na! Tumi emon kichu o bhalo lekhona je writer hote parbe”.
Deeya was fed up, she knew there was nothing she could do to stop her father from forcing her to study engineering…
It wasn’t that her father didn’t love her, being the only child, she was always pampered but then this pampering had nothing to do with her studies, right from choosing between cookery and computer application at the ICSE level to studying science in the 10+2 level, everything was decided by her father. In fact, her parents had even decided her future. 4 yrs of engineering, then 2 yrs of Mba in finance and then bagging a job at one of the best banking sectors with a package of about 20 lakhs/year!
Well, that’s a bit high from the package one of her cousin’s get and its obvious that Deeya’s salary needs to be more than that of him! Otherwise, according to her father, “Bari te ke r tor sathe mishbe??” Ya ” keu toke patta e debe na, not even your cousins” ya ” Status maintain na korle rasta te ghurte hobe keu dekle o kotha bolbe na” Isn’t that what every one wants?
A good degree and then a good job with a good salary! But what if this good salary or job never gives you the satisfaction you wanted? What if, you have to compensate your passion for an unwanted ambition?
Deeya was helpless. Attending those boring thermodynamics classes made her sick, her results had already started deteriorating! Forget about good grades, passing in all the subjects was becoming tough for her and to add more, she hardly cared! The same girl who in school, argued with her teachers even for half marks, now didn’t even care! But then why was she waiting for the results? What exactly was in her mind?
Well to find that out, we need to rewind a few days back. On the continuous insistence of one of her friends, Deeya decided to go against her parents and sit for a journalism entrance for The St. Xavier’s college, Kolkata! And the admission forms were to be out an hour after the declaration of the results, Deeya was restless. What if her father finds out? But then she had to take that step. How long could she live the life that others wanted? She finally filled up the admission form.
Luck was in her favor. She cracked the entrance with a good percentage!
If anyone thinks this was the happy ending of the story, then let me clear, this is just the beginning. The reality was just near. She now had to confront her parents, tell them about her result!
She called up her parents and told them about her journalism entrance and the way she bagged it with excellent results. But what her father told was unexpected. He asked her to confirm the news once again, since getting into Xavier’s isn’t that easy.
She called up the admission desk to confirm her results, and what she got in return gave her a shock. The woman in the help desk reconfirmed that her admission has been cancelled!
Later it was revealed that due to some security checks, the college authority had to call her parents and that’s when her father confirmed about cancelling her admission!
The story still doesn’t end! A frustrated engineering student commits suicide! This is what the next day’s headlines said. But only Deeya knew what the story was all about and she had already left ignoring what others would assume.
Some of her batch mates even discussed about the issue being related to some bad break ups. While others said ” Baba-Ma eto khoroch korlo tao mey r Mon bhorlo na”
People and their unending presumptions! They are never going to change. No one even cares to know the truth.
When ever talked about child harassments’, people take up issues like molestation and rapes, but what about those kids whose desire to owe even the world’s cheapest guitar is always replaced with an expensive laptop! For some it may be a luxury! After all, not all parents would spend so much for a little kid… But for the kid, whose whole world revolves around that one guitar, she once saw her favourite rock star playing and hopes to do the same one day. It’s a disaster. Because the moment she unwrapped her laptop, she realized. That “one day” will never come!
