41. Two simple questions

I am a cheerful and instinctive guy, go by my gut feeling more often than not coz I don’t like to stress the only nerve that’s there in my brain, with too much thinking. Am a bit easy going, happy go lucky and to put it in typical hyd-ie lingo, I ‘take lite’. Boletho, I tend to take things as they come(move on with life) and that I don’t get angry/disappointed/down easily. No, this is’nt an Orkut profile’s ‘about me’ section that I am trying to fill up here. But there surely are two questions which whenever asked make my only nerve swell to twenty four times its normal size! I’ve been troubled by these two questions all thru my life so far, its like they’re two living entities brought into this world to torment me wherever I go. Well, the two questions are

1.What are you doing now ?

2.What are you going to do next/after this ?

Let me see how I answered/should have answered these questions at different stages of my 21 year life thus far.

Primary school

1. What are you doing now son/beta?
This question used to have a ready answer back then. Just tell them that you’re in school and that was all. Generally, no further second line of questioning would ensue, apart from the occasional ‘Did you stand first in class?’ or ‘Are you still scoring a centum in math?’

2.What are you going to do after this?
Well, this seemed a fascinating question back in those days. These were my usual answers
“Am gonna save lots of my pocket money, buy a truck and become a truck driver.”
“Am thinking of robbing Sharma uncle’s Master-card, taking a flight to Sweden and buying the world’s biggest chocolate.”
“Am gonna watch DD-8 all evening everyday, learn about fertilizers and become a farmer.”

I got a lot of attention coz of my innocent yet quirky answers, which I did like to a certain degree.

Secondary school
1. What are you doing now?
Still the same answer. It worked wonders.

2. What are you going to do after this?
The same answers dint seem to work in the same way :( People began to give stares, glares and told me to get serious. Was told to get an ambition, to have a goal, a vision, a Nintendo Game-boy (oops no, but I did think of getting one for myself :) ). Anyways, then began my search for that elusive ambition, that one quirky and intelligent answer which would get me back the attention I used to get. Those were testing times. Any answer I gave, always followed with it, a complicated second line of questions which I never had any clue about. I used to just nod when the very people who used to ask those questions gave the answers and asked me to think a little more. Well, lets be fair, I was still a kid. I loved playing my video games, my gully cricket and watching my cartoons on tv. I loved quizzing but that was all. I dint have any ambition. But I was too apprehensive to tell this to anyone. Always stuck to the same “I wanna be an architect” or “I wanna be an air-host” crap whenever asked.

Before professional college
After school, I was made to choose the science stream, but I had no qualms. Anything was ok with me. Was made to prepare for the barrage of engineering entrance examinations (I dint know why I was doing what I was doing) and finally, I managed to enter the engineering stream.

1. What are you doing now?
“Well, I have just completed my intermediate (+2). I dint get thru to IIT. Wrote another exam for a certain DA-IICT in gandhinagar and will take admission there.”

This used to be followed by so many irritating comments. “Oh! Dhirubhai Ambani institute ehh. You’re future is secure with Reliance now.”...... “That old man has created a fantastic empire!”...... “Will you be able to study in gandhinagar? I mean, its so far away, how will you go?”

Irrespective of the comment, I used to nod my head and give a rising smile which usually made the other person think that I actually applauded/approved of his comment and he/she used to stop pestering me further.

2. What are you going to do next?
By this time, even though I’d realized that it was no longer possible to be a farmer or a truck driver, I also realized that I dint know what I wanted to do next (and that was kinda perplexing at times). So I thought of doing what we as Indians do best – ‘follow the crowd’. Yea, I wanted to be a software engineer now, like every other gult and tam in town. I was gonna top in all my engineering courses, become a deadly programmer and own Microsoft by the age of 30. Somehow, this answer seemed to please many of my admirers.

After professional college
Realization dawns that I aint fit to be an engineer, but somehow have graduated to become a farzi-neer. Somehow managed to get a first class and get out of that hell hole alive.

1. What are you doing now?
“You remember the long breaks one has between major jumps during one’s student life, the after-10th grade holidays, the after-12^th grade holidays? I am having a similar massive 4 month holiday now. Am doing nothing, absolutely nothing and I am loving every minute of it.” Well, this hasn’t gone down very well with many. All they say is “how is it that you are not doing anything? People are flying off to the U.S, joining jobs, opening brothels…but they’re doing something!”
Oh yeah. I’m doing something alrite. I’m taking car-driving lessons. Even though I’ve almost driven the test vehicle into an open drain twice till now, my instructor is dead sure that I will get my license to kill by next Monday. Also, I’ve created an aromatic oil. Some of my coconut oil fell into an open pineapple jam jar accidentally and the rest is history. It’s a got a refreshing smell. You shud try it.

2. What are you going to do next?
Have a job to join in a month now. And yea, I am still following the crowd. No. I am not rushing off to the U.S coz its become more like India than India itself. Am being made to write all these management institute entrance exams coz my well-wishers think I am brainy. My current answer to this question is “I am thinking of doing an MBA from a top b-skool” - which again seems to go well with the people.

But actually, I still don’t know what to do. I don’t have an ambition. Is it a curse? I’ve done reasonably well so far without one. Is it a blessing in disguise?