Desires, to die for

The nest in the blue pine spews out a feathery fledgling. It has to learn to fend for itself or perish in the jungle.

The nest in the blue pine spews out a feathery fledgling. It has to learn to fend for itself or perish in the jungle. I think of this, when I hear of another youngster from a premier institution committing suicide, unable to cope with institutional and parental pressures to somehow or other ensure a promising career.

Some institutions do organise programmes to strengthen the inner stamina of youngsters, but their attempts are often arrested due to vehement protests from parents. Many of these parents had sent their children to a prestigious institution to study, not to 8220;while away time8221;. When will adults wake up to the need for education, not vocational fluff masquerading as sterling equipment for life?

When the LBS National Academy for Administration interacted with an IIT some years ago, to find out why most of its students preferred the civil services to a career in technology, they were shown findings of an internal survey which revealed that parents were insistent that their children should either go abroad or, if that does not work, enter the civil services. It is either money power or administrative power, for them. Can we blame the progeny of such parents if they spend their lives in unabashed pursuit of material values? They begin with wants and, despite their spiralling salaries, keep increasing these wants. Even if the Pussycat gets to London to look at the Queen she can think only of the little mouse under the chair!

8216;Paupers8217;, the Bhagwat calls them daridra, perpetually in want, self-doomed to eternal BPL-hood. Should not human parents do better than birds? Should they not understand the desire-frustration syndrome and teach their children to do likewise before pushing them into a jungle with its competing salary ceilings?

The world may recognise the Gita as the manual for work and life, but our own people can only see a pauperising threat in nishkaam karma and miss the guarantee of full support for those who refuse to arrest their lives at the material level and reach out to realise their inner divinity. How long will we keep missing the point that divinity covers everything, material prosperity too, as an incidental benefit; how long will children keep ending their lives in desperation, not knowing how to live?