Today I fell into a heated argument with some of my friends over a peculiar issue that I see most often in “Indian Marriage” scenarios in particular. The thing is that in every relation, people often reach a stage where a compromise has to be made if certain common ends are to be realized and most often it is the female partner who is expected to do so. This has been going on since ages. Earlier girls were not independent and use to enter a new world after marriage and a long chain of compromises used to start. They used to do that because there was no other way possible and use to search for a real or fake happiness in this new world only.

But today when I see independent, highly educated girls doing the same, I feel really bad. Suppose a girl is getting married (lets take an arrange marriage here) and that particular girl is in a good job with a good career prospect but in different city or country as compared to her husband. Now who is the one who will leave his/her job, in a large and large majority of cases: my fellow gender will do it. Why? Is marriage a series of compromises for a girl only. Even the same so prominently (though a bit less) happens in love marriages too. Are so deserving and independent girls of today lacking the power to change traditions that are so going against them?

And what is the saddest part of this situation? Most of the girls today also call this only as happiness. I don’t consider them wrong, I in fact admire them that they have so much courage to curb their desires and accept everything new. What is more soothing to our forefathers when girls only are being so submissive? Compromise is not just their duty. Compromises must be shared upon, not just burdened upon females only. And girls of today have the power to get things their way, the way they want to be happy, the way they want to compromise.

I start doubting the institution of marriage when I see this, it really turns me off to be a witness to such marriages.

One of the interesting things I discovered in my final year (5th year, last semester) was to attend classes of an open category course that is normally done by students in their 2nd year. I couldn’t do it earlier so was doing it now. It’s at times really out of place and weird to be in a class where 98% people are three years junior to you. There talks and behavior involve most of the times those things that have past away in my life 2-3 years back. At other times, there are things of which I have seen so much and so often in past that they now look monotonous or too repetitive.

My fellow 98% start talking about studying a week before the exams or at least start bothering about syllabus etc. Probably they have 5-6 courses and may be 2 exams in a day. They want to be serious. But for me it’s just a course to get my degree out and I just have 2 courses so no botheration about exams too. More importantly there is no enthusiasm left think it about; I just want to clear it.

When politics started in IIT, I heard a group talking about who will become cult (cultural secretary of a hostel) and etc. There was an excitement in their talks as they were experiencing it for the first time. Same happens when they discuss about trophies of their extra curricular clubs and boards. They have a genuineness and curiosity in their mind about the results. They are so excited about various Boards’ nights. But what about me, I just give it a laugh and I feel as a grown up, very grown up for I had seen all this enough in past four years. And at the time missing the times when I have been in their places.

Being in 2nd year, they all try for interns too and I once saw them congratulating a friend of theirs who got an intern in some foreign univ. There talks showed shadows of dreams that were there in their eyes for they all wanted some good place to go as their friend got. Having worked across 2 interns and now placed in midst of a "recession placement", I could only think that how much more they have to see now in iit. And if they are tensed at this, how many more tensions are left in their lives here.

One day I saw a guy in the seat before me trying to talk to one of the girls of my class. He was a bit hesitant to talk. I can make out his face that he kinda liked her, may be a fling sort only. And behind me was a group gossiping about them. At once it all looked so familiar to me. I have seen it in my 1st and 2nd years too, only faces are now different.

Once I pointed a mistake among a sleeping class in one of prof's derivation. He was calling a term as velocity which was actually acceleration and had explained everything on this basis. I was waiting for someone to say something but when no one woke up, I myself told the prof about his mistake. At once many students start discussing it. I felt as if they were kinda shocked as how could I see what they didn’t saw, I felt as a total outsider. Here too I couldn’t stop my smile. They were perhaps under the impression that I had flunked earlier in this course. huhhh.... not done.

Later a guy asked me if this is the second time I am doing this course. I was embarrassed and guessed that most of them definitely had the first impression that I have flunked in this course previously and hence am repeating it.

It’s really weird to see how IITD makes you grow and change. It’s faster than any other noticeable changes in your life. You are a different person when you walk out of this place than when you stepped in here. I have been in the shoes of the rest of my class. But 5 years of stay in this place have made me grow over things that matter the most to them. I don’t think about them the way they do. May be I have been offered a lot more other things to ponder about. Whatever it is, it’s an experience to see what I have left and grown over. These people make my memories all the more alive of the time I have spent here.

I love you and I am there!

Almost every person in this world has certain dream of a perfect relationship and certain fear of a successful break up. Whenever I look around my self over break ups that were at some point of time good relations, I always find one factor in most of them.

“He/She is perfect for me but at times (or always) is not there for me when I need him/her the most”

Relations make us share a lot of stuff with the person we date. And then that becomes gradual and any change or absence in this thing sets the trigger to rotten a relation.

The reasons for not being there may be many, different career paths, long distance, different work schedules and etc and etc.

This is natural also in the highly career oriented life our generation lives in. Our dear and compatible friends won’t be always around us as at some point or the other our professional and personal priorities become all the more important than our friends. Hence that’s why we start looking towards “Mr. /Miss One” more and more often. We want him/her to be with us when we need him/her. We start wanting that “Mr. / Miss One” to be the first person in our calling list in case of an emergency or a problem. This is the time when the other three words “I am there” become more important than “I love you”.

On one hand we want to be independent today but on other hand we yearn for a trusting dependence on someone. Does that mean that this independence is relative?