Art and the Artists

                  EDUCATION - A BLUNT TOOL

Recently i realized that being a post graduate in English is one pitiable position to hold. Imagine the misery of having a degree considered estimable in society and yet being as unproductive in terms of providing you with a good job as if you are a 12^th pass individual. I respect those people who didn't go for higher studies but much preferred to either learn  some technical skill or join a call-center right away. What other options do i have even after doing m.a . surely i can go for lectureship now. But what if i don’t want to? What if i choose not to be a part of that lecherous team of professors who participate in getting benefited of the position of students and exploit them in order to grant those marks. And even if i leave that portion of reality, what use is this degree of??

Surely, i know few texts and i have certain tools of reading other texts in a particular way. Surely, i have certain fixed categories of feminism, linguistics, structuralism, content, language, history and so on in order to write a brief introduction about any text or individual but is that of any use?? Would it provide me the job of my satisfaction and money to ensure the lifestyle of my choice.

All that the course had done is that mah mental horizons have further opened up. I am no more able to fit in the mould of the society around me. i have critical distance to ensure a unique dimention but no place to fit in. I guess education makes us able enough to carve out our own space – as desired by our unique mindsets. But does the society allow it?? i doubt it.

A jobless and aimless girl who often faces fingers of all - questioning at times her opinions and thoughts. Many a times, her education is rather blamed for her being so different. I ask, if uniqueness is devoid of an individual’s identity what makes us all to be humans? Are we mere homogeneous products of a factory – meant to walk in gyres of society prefixed by our stereo-typical ancestors? And had our ancestors too limited themselves to those dimensions – wherefrom our vibrant history been written from? How else would have happened those huge discoveries, conquests, experiments and triumphs over nature?

There is a series of social stairs imposed upon every individual the moment he/she is born. Grow up, go to school, get good marks, learn manners, etiquettes, admission in college, higher studies, job, marriage, children, old age, so on. I guess, i don’t have to worry at all. my life is too easy to be lived. All i have to do is to follow the flow chart designed for me by all but me. alas!!! I am punished with a head which works slightly differently. Alas!! I want everything but a mundane life of ascending to those social parameters.

Have i not spent enough of my life following what others desired . good marks, good manners, respect to even those who don’t deserve it and what now? Am i satisfied? Partially yes. But surely not from these fulfilments. What gave me satisfaction was the moments where i followed my own heart. Those travels in mystical places,  learning from random people from places all over, visiting those hidden diverse beautiful enchantments of earth, watching dawn getting mature and dusk dyeing in the arms of soothing darkness.

So what now?? Travel?? Family??? Job?? What??? Huh!! I guess, this is existential crises. No balance is possible as balancing for me is another name of compromises. What if i don’t choose to compromise? What if I don’t want to settle down?? What if I like being a rolling stone?

Imagine, few countries don’t allow a spinster girl to travel and work in their premise just because she is not married. Imagine the system of marriage on contract basis. I have heard of a system where guys from Punjab marry a girl in india, take her to caneda, take care of all her expenses for 3 years and then once they get a permanent visa, they get divorced. I mean, what is the need of getting married?? What kind of legal facilities are these which compel a person to live a fake life.

But i guess some kind of system is required. Some rules, some obligations would always be there – to be liked by some and disliked by many.

 If only the system was open for creativity and mobility. if only, our society was not so rigid and people were free to be who they are. Surely, people remain who they are – atleast inside their own dimentions. How else could those beastly humans act upon their ill intentions and exploit whomever they are able to. But shouldn’t it be possible for those in real need of it? won’t world be a better and more truthful place where artists would be free to express their art the way they want to. After all, they are the forbearers of today’s history to be read in future generations.

 - mystical wanderer