Two Sides To A Coin

Two sides to a coin,

Life is like that, you always have double view over anything that you come across, like in many instances, we see different dimensions and that is an eye opener.

While our children are studying we find people enquiring what is it that he is doing with great interest, and if you come up with engineering or doctor or any other IT professional course then you see your friend’s eyes going up in awe and with a nod stating not bad, good, keep it up sort of stuff.

The same thing when you were to say, he has taken up hotel management, artistic pursuits then it is not so impressive after all, they think the child has not much of intelligence so must have taken a line like this. Teaching is a non paying job and one need to slog a lot is the kind of advices that you get to hear.

When your child gets a gold medal in a professional training, immediately they ask you to send her to US to finish her Masters in whichever subject she is pursing, so that she can get a well paid job in future. The same thing does not go for an ordinary graduate. The expressions simply do not compliment the person concerned or the parent for helping the child to get only the basic certification.

Now take music for instance, most people are very appreciative when a child has taken up Carnatic music and going on to do her Phd, under the tutelage of a famous guru let it be Dr.Balamurali Krishna, or someone equally famous. The other side, when they come to know the child is thorough with the film songs and is a singer in an orchestra, one can understand the look that they give, it equals that of those given to rag pickers on the road.

Let me clarify here, the film music is also based on ragas, if thyagaraja can sing about rama in great fervor of bhakthi, so also Jesudas, SPB, kishore, Rafi can sing about the nada roopini, in various languages of film songs, in fact they take the trouble to highlight the ragas in films and it becomes very popular but in vain how do you make them understand..

We do seek solace in songs of HIS HIGHNESS ABDULLAH in Malayalam, SHANKARABHARANAM in telugu, SINDHU BHAIRAVI in tamil all of which are wonderful presentation of the classical and light music merging together. Don’t you think our youth who are not able to get either good teachers have the only way out listening to music from radios and latha mangeshkar is undisputed guru to many millions though she says to take out original lyrics and music for SA RE GA MA but people love the old rendition any day.

Now again if your daughter or son is a classical dancer, friends look upon with awe and try to connect with them saying yes she is my friend’s daughter or son. The same if she was to be dancing for discos and other salsa which is yet to pick up in India in a great way is definitely not looked upon. The dance in the film “HONEYMOON TRAVELS” is very deeply etched and for the crowd who watch English channels will vouch for the grace that is there in these dances, but our typical Indian crowds, though they have come a long way with the latest exposure through cable channels is yet to acknowledge the same with friends.

Now coming to the job factor, the same applies here too, in those days a job in any bank was considered to be looked upon in awe but now our friends find it great to hear our children in IBM, INFOSYS, WIPRO,ORACLE, GE, ACCENTURE. They have their laptops and badges and pens and cars coming over to pick and drop all the fanfare needed but the child suffers the same under the manager whether it is IT or ordinary stuff, but the view is different for the friends.

Now you might wonder why a friend or a society around is so important! IT IS - after all we mingle with them and sometime in the process somewhere we tend to feel good or bad accordingly. The nature of society is to have more friends, like how I had mentioned elsewhere in my article a meddler love to mingle and leave his opinion whether you like it or not for you to ponder about your life’s right and wrong.

Here I must tell about friends, and how they get under the scanner from others about one’s contact and status and so on, some say he is a womanizer, so being his friend is to take the blame on self, like in tamil there is a saying, panamarathu keezhirunda paal kudithalum adu kallu. So on each step life becomes a dimension in vision and you tend to be rated accordingly and your left non plisse always.

Good alliances come forthe for the children of corporate employees, business man, professionals like architects, doctors, and so many others, but the same cannot be said about TEACHERS[poor standard of living] HOTELIERS [character may not be nice] as many prostitutes and hawala guys and goondas come into their contact daily.

And many more dimensions you all can fill in here…sunkan

Dear Sunkan,

Great Topic.... I really enjoy reading ur articles and you always come out with something different.... Great.....

It is nature that people always set their standards high. Even in thirukural somewhere it is said that the mother will love more the kid who is educated more among her kids....... So, it goes.....

It is not only with the General society...... Last two year before there was a great issue in the NRI meets the Govt organised, that more preference is given to NRI's from US and not from the Gulf etc. etc........ Let me not get too much into that....

People know only those things which comes into the news frequently. There may be so many companies in the IT Park, but they still think of the few who come in the forefront news daily...

I tend to disagree with you that cine song singers are not being recognised.....We can show quite a lot of examples of great cine music singers....

It is not Double standards.... They have kept their standards high.... and expect high..... They know only about the few topper and the rest they are ignorant of.....

I agree with you that people evaluate you based on your possessions/money and wealth.......

Veda