Monday, 1 June 2020

The Sheep

Wiki says a role model is a person whose behaviour, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people. While I was in 11th grade I never knew this definition of a role model or is it that I never felt the urge to imitate somebody?. When Beena miss asked this question “Who is your role model?” I was forced to come up with a name. She started calling the names one by one. Megha told Mother Teresa for her interest in selfless service. ‘Sachin Tendulkar’ it was Darshan, a die hard fan of Sachin and Cricket, he didn’t even had to think twice. For Sajeer it was his father, that he also want to become a Cardiologist like him. Then it was my turn, I stood up recollecting all the famous names from my past encounters, the dearth of reading books left me with just a handful of names. The prominent and best known one was Gandhiji, the essay I wrote in the 10th annual exam was quite fresh in my memory that I talked about truth and nonviolence there by lying in front of the whole class. 


Why should I imitate someone? Why can’t I be myself? 


This call for imitation was there from ever since I could remember and the role models kept changing as I grew up. Starting from my cousin, my mom would say “be like your cousin”. Instead of a model’s, I always stitched a villain’s costume for my cousin. At school the teacher would try fitting the top performers of the class into that same villain costume. My grandmother’s favorite costume which she would like to see me in was that of a doctor’s. 


It would have been convenient if we could come up with moulds to bring up the children to become something or someone. It was my uncle asking me some months back about the trending jobs in the market. “Which stream should I make Adib, his son to choose after 10th that he would have a great career?”. I said “Leave it to him, let him study whatever interests him”. He prodded me with a statement “It is your duty to guide the youngsters”. “Yea, I can guide, make them realize their areas of interest, not beyond that” I said reluctantly. 



The aspiration to grow upto the role models has become quite evident as man started playing with the genetics of plants and animals. 30 liters of milk a day, designer eggs, BT Brinjal the list goes on. The predictability, the yield, the reduced lead time we made parameters to measure our success. Measuring every trait helps in managing them with better efficiency. Are we trying to replicate it to the human traits as well? At least in India the parents could be compared to any farm owners. Striving to bring out the maximum yield out of their offsprings. 


I have always seen Varghese as an example to a role model in his reference groups. We met in the swimming pool of Sports Authority of India, in Trivandrum. Soon we became good friends. We both were in the initial stages of our career. While I stood clueless about the future, he had a concrete balance sheet to boast about. The sheet goes like this: getting married at 27, he is already in talks with one of his junior from the university, same religion, same sub religion and that too the only daughter from a rich family and he claims it to be pure love. Then he would change his job to a bigger city to a better position. The first kid at the age of 29 and second kid in a difference of 2 years. ‘So that they can farm them better utilizing the economies of scale and scope’. By the time he reaches the age of 50 his kids would be in a position to earn and look after him. At that tender age I felt disappointed that I don’t have such a clarity about my life. I was happy meeting my mom’s ideal ‘human being’. The funny part is that it has been more than a decade after establishing this life sheet and he has managed to stick to it so far with at most accuracy. 



What is the level of free thinking empowered with our youngsters and their capacity in grasping things with a free mind? One gets attributed to a social role and we keep comparing him with the other performers of the reference groups. The list of reference groups is never ending. We run poll to pillar to qualify and retain a particular tag, the first act in any farm so in human race ‘branding’, but not with a branding iron but they have other ways to segregate. The role of religion in branding is huge. It was only couple of years back I asked my mom why she didn’t let me learn music though she claim that I had showed interest in singing as a child. She proudly said ‘’ It is haram (forbidden) for muslims to sing and dance”. One is not supposed to read or even think beyond the limitations of his religion. If a particular activity is not part of the reference group it is considered as a vice and they have strict measures to control these vices. They would go to any extend and if needed they would adopt the last measure in a farm if the animal is uncontrollable ‘culling’. The ultimate reward for free thinking. Thoreau once said ‘Most people die with their music still within them.’



Apart from branding and culling there are many more terms which are quite common in Animal Husbandry world, getting attributed to the so called social animals. Very recently the not so familiar word ‘quarantine’ is becoming an everyday affair. How painful it is to see the nature practicing ‘weeding’ in human population. May it as tsunami, earthquake, flood or Covid. When the human thoughts lose the capacity to contain its population and keep following the heroes from a different millennia or an era, the nature is waking us to our human nature, to that capacity to ‘think and act’. At least the nature is giving opportunity to go away from these herds and letting us confined to individual pens to experience that solitude and to come out as human beings. But he found ways to satisfy this ‘follow instincts’ through instagram, twitter, tik-tok the list goes on. We don’t mind spending hours to stalk and imitate what our peers are up to, but we hardly find time to observe ourself and follow our own instincts. 



We should respect our heroes, their values, their contribution to the society, the revolution they brought in. Any effort to outperform them in these aspects has to be encouraged. It becomes detrimental when we start following them blindly that we assign role models in our social circles, in our tribes that we look up to them for every decision we take. Trying to imitate them to every extend possible. Attributing more value to the teacher than his teachings. A level of imitation were we loose our individuality our natural talents our aspirations getting subjugated to somebody’s path keeping our freedom at stake. 



Isn’t freedom such a beautiful feeling or have we become so comfortable in letting somebody to define me how I should take every step in my life? We are taught to find pleasure in social appreciation and recognition. Like the animals in circus we base our self worth on the praise and acclaim we receive.  


Defining limits and borders to our thoughts and actions how long can we remain as a frog in the deep well, and keep digging further deep?! We prefer to play safe by imitating somebody and assigning someone as our role model stuffing our thinking faculty into the freezers. Blindly following a prophet or a business tycoon or a guru just as any sheep do. We are all mere sheeps.


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