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Crossroads
By Sandhya Krishnan ('99 Information Systems)
As I looked at the
mail that had just landed in my inbox a few million random thoughts
crossed my mind. Attached were wedding pictures of my wingie from BITS
and standing with the happy couple was another friend with her husband,
visibly expecting their first child. As I regretted not being there, my
eyes instinctively landed on the wall behind me. My old poster of a
cozying couple with much torn edges and very visible creases stared
back. I don’t even know why I chose to hold on to the one relic
my BITSian room was identified with. It had no place in my life and
certainly none in a B-school. I told everyone it makes me feel at home.
Frankly, I think it just makes me feel younger.
Is the honeymoon over, I wondered. Twenty four is a funny age to be.
It’s when your opinion has suddenly begun to matter and
strangely, you don’t seem to like it. It is the age when they
stop forgiving you for acting like a kid and start expecting you to
know how to handle one.
Friends of mine think they might still be a little too young to marry.
But of course, you really cannot be taking competitive exams now- for
when you graduate there might not be many eligible bachelors left. A
corporate woman then? Maybe not, because for all the gorgeous women of
this generation, three years is a long time to be working on the same
job. For the thousands of women who joined the workforce three odd
summers back, the crossroads of life are taking form.
Is there such a thing as too many choices? I thought about my close
circle of friends. As independent young women with the freedom to step
forward in time or back into domesticity, we are a lot pampered for
choice. Gone are the days when working women were the toast of the day.
Today it’s suddenly cool to stay at home, look after the kids and
make aromatic candles. We can study at the best colleges, get the
highest degrees, give up everything for the man we love and move to
unknown lands. Who is to stop us? Hot shot careers could well be giving
way to chocolate chip cookie baking lessons.
As we needle our way out of our protective environments, the comfort of
being the new employee, the junior student, the blushing bride,
there’s an overwhelming amount of challenges and decisions thrown
at us. We grapple with them, mostly alone, too independent and proud to
ask for help. The truth is, we may not be as tough as we claim to be.
We wax eloquent in public on how strong we are. And yet we crumble at
the thought of calling a close friend to condole the death of his
beloved.
Today no one raises as much as an eyebrow when I tell them of my plans
to start a restaurant and author a book. Another close friend just made
a successful shift from a software techie to a well paid finance
executive- with a one year MBA. Except for some student loans,
there’s nothing to stop her now. Just as I write this more and
more women are changing lanes faster than we can imagine, all to pursue
something unusual and more fulfilling. We are breaking stereotypes to
form niches of our own. We want to be fashionable and comfortable,
silly and suave - all at the same time.
It is true. We now like to pay our own bills. But we aren’t going
to deny men the pleasure of opening our doors and pulling out chairs
for us. After all, there can be nothing wrong in a little
pampering and that’s exactly how we like our lives too. Among all
the generations of women on this earth we are probably the easiest to
live with. And the most difficult to understand.
I thought of the bright and sunny days spent at BITS. When the next
quiz and submission used to be the big obstacles to our carefree life.
When girls would huddle around the night canteen at midnight to discuss
the next hot topic of discussion. When most of our plans for life ended
with the campus job or a flight to the states. When the next best thing
to look forward to would be the next movie, not the next wedding.
And how much things have changed since then.
As we stand in the way, with the million others zooming past us, there
is only one big question. What is life all about? Each of the paths we
take may lead us to some kind of successes, but what is it that we are
putting at stake? Our careers? Our families? Our capabilities? Or plain
personal satisfaction?
I closed my laptop and reached out for a glass of milk. If this were
‘Sex and the City’, now would be when the camera pans out
and the credits roll. Like many others, I wonder what the next episode
holds in store.
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