My dad’s father was the
first generation learner and he studied up to “matric”, the term in use back
then for Class 10. His medium of instruction was Urdu. I remember leafing
through his account books in wonder. The letters he wrote us began with the
standard and never changing form of address for my father, “Barkhurdaar Harnek
Singh”. His dream was to see his two sons through the Punjab Agricultural
College (now University), Ludhiana.
Papa Ji must have had visions of his sons returning to the
soil at the end of their agricultural degrees. My father instead joined the
Army Education Corp. As we moved, nomad like, from one cantonment to the other,
there remained a constant. We three siblings were placed in the best schools
available locally.
But I grew up with an acute sense of the lack of educated
units in our family. There was hard work; you saw enterprise, even the smarts
of the street but no weighty professional degree in the immediate vicinity. I
remember the wondrous amazement I felt, at acquaintances that seemed to have
sprung from a lineage of professionals, creative artists, families that had
learning as their grammar, their history, their geography.
And soon enough, it was my turn. I had wanted to become a
full-fledged journalist. But in the
India of the late 70s, anyone who scored decently took up the Science stream in
senior school. I did not risk that beaten track even though life gave me my second
chance to swing back to my original love in the Vice Principal’s office at Fergusson
College, Pune in 1980. Dr. Pathak was looking at me, pen poised over two boxes:
Chemistry or English Literature? I mumbled feebly, “Can I do both?” He shook
his head and marked the Science swiftly.
That decision became my personal red light, a betrayal of
the self almost. Little wonder that its aftertaste coagulated over the
following years, into a concrete resolve to help my own daughters identify
their core interests first. And that is how it came about that an arduous and
busy process of raising them to experience a range of fields ended the day we
stood at the gates of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore
with Aqseer. Round one had clicked!
It is hard to describe the emotions of middle class Indian
parents leading their child into one of the country’s premier and coveted
schools of learning. There is awe, there is pride, there is gratitude and most
of all, there is a sense of validation, of having done the right by the
young. I was like Mrs Bhamra of Bend it
like Beckham, “At least I taught her full Indian dinner, the rest is up to
God”.
It wasn’t long before the talk of graduation date began
doing the rounds. The campus placements however, came and went; Aqseer did not
register for any. Why deprive someone else who is really keen on a corporate
job? Ditto for the “Teach for India” platform which glimmered one instant,
pausing briefly but only to whizz past. There was a lot of thinking and
agonizing and analysing afoot and more and more, the house was reverberating
with two words, “Public Policy”.
The futuristic images that had taken shape in our minds over
the five years of law school gradually began to dissolve at the edges. It was
getting increasingly clear that the beaten track was going to be given the miss
this time in my life. We stood by, her father and I, and watched the mental
upheaval involved with a mix of concern and pride.
More and more, I was beginning to understand the rationale
of the paths most taken. Of course, there is the security of the known, the
comfort of crystal clear directions, and the certainty of cruising home. But
what do you say to this, “Mom, I am twenty two years old. I spent five years at
India’s best law school. The serve is mine to return. We have to stop fearing
failure. At my age and with my degree, if I don’t take a risk, who will?”
Note: All pictures of Aqseer doing the Macau Tower Bungy Jump, 61 stories, 233 m high.
