Aug 11, 20193 min
This letter is to all the members of the older generation who are responsible for discrimination made on the basis of an individual’s educational choice in our country. Dear old-school uncle/aunty or a distant relative who spoke to me regarding their concerns about my choice of dropping science and hoped that you could change my mind. This letter is not to make you feel any more important than you already assume you are but it is because many people younger than me will meet a bunch of people like you, and may doubt themselves and their ability to achieve their dreams.
Now, as you continue to read this and may have the urge to look away after reading a few lines because I promised brutality in my honesty, here goes:
The stream I chose after doing science in the ninth and tenth was Humanities. It is not Arts, so if you wish to continue you may want to learn this first, because I plan to educate you, as you make your way through this letter because you seem to lack it. And also because you assume that I’m only going to be capable of being a teacher because I chose the stream I chose. By the way, you wouldn’t have been able to read this letter in the first place if it wasn’t for a teacher, yes you are welcome. I thought you needed a gentle reminder.
We have five projects each term, these projects consist of at least two months of hard work and a plenty of sleep deprived nights, so while you may brag about how engineering causes caffeine addiction trust me we don’t learn about substance dependence in psychology just for kicks. We experience it every day. So when I say I chose humanities, and it isn’t the easier way out it’s the truth. There is a reason I say it, and it is because it was a conscious choice and I was no abandoned puppy that ended up losing its way.
As for the misperceived size of our textbooks, we don’t have a prescribed text book for a majority of our subjects because we have three large reference books for at least one subject, I can count by the way even though I dropped math, it is okay for you to be surprised, if I were you I would be surprised too. You haven’t had much exposure, I understand. I truly do.
Now as most of you continue to think how obnoxious I am, for being able to say these things about your narrow minds out loud, let me stun you a bit more. Even Michelle Obama was a humanities student, but you probably don’t know who she is because if taking humanities is ruining a one’s life, you must believe that gender equality is a terrible thing as well.
Many people may tell you that they did their BA because it was the easier way out, multiple students commit suicide due to the pressure in Indian Institutes of Technology all over India, how do we fail to see the easy way out here?
It is not your fault my dear reader, because I truly believe that it is our generations. We were born into homes where most parents believed that a child’s success could only be accounted for by the money he/she earned, and then spent on going to a psychologist (who has a high chance of being a humanities major themselves) in order to understand life’s worth and the psychologist, makes more than your son/daughter does in a month because almost one-fourth of your child’s salary is spent on visiting them in just one week, another mathematical reference. Oh, and for your information your child’s problems are indirectly related to the inability to pursue what they wanted because you believed that their passion could never become a career. Please don’t die of shock, I do not want to go to jail just yet. So is it too much to ask for? Then I request you to show a little kindness and revive the goodness in humanity. I apologize, but I just had to add that pun there, because trust me I know that our generation is nothing like yours and while some of you may gloat about it, you may want to know that our goal was never to be like you in the first place.
Love always, the Indian disappointment.
-Eva Banerjee, 12A