Free Gyaan

After reading the header, do I hear you say that you have got this so many times? It happens with almost all of us. When we are young, from watchman to milkman, elder brother to grand father - everyone comes and gives us gyaan on various things!

As a kid, I was always told how to behave, how to dress, how to talk and various other things. I was brought up in a small town in Gujarat. People there were pretty orthodox. Anything above the knee after the age of 10 was a sin! Wearing a short top on denim? Gosh, you are such a cheap girl! Yes, people are still this orthodox even today!

A few people still raise their eyebrows when they see my tattoos, or see others wearing short dresses for a party, or a girl smoking.Well, I do know that each of us is entitled to an opinion, but when the opinion comes across as a negative remark, the problem starts then. We commonly know it as generation gap!

So far, I was thinking that there exist a vast gap between me and elder people around me. I used to crib about how my mother does not approve of certain things that I do, certain clothes that I wear, certain kind of music I hear and movies I watch, late night parties, sleep overs etc. I always used to argue with my mother about how my friends were allowed to do certain things and I wasn't. Now, they don't tell me anything anymore as I am grown up. I have become "wise enough" to know what's good for me and what's not. Nobody gives me any lecture anymore on what I should or shouldn't be doing.

Well, I was under the impression that I was a very "modern" girl until now. I happened to meet a friend's teenage daughter. I was talking to her. She was telling me about how her life is, what kind of a lifestyle she and her friends and plenty of people of her age have, how they party, have boyfriends since standard 7, how almost all her friends have a blackberry and an iPhone each! Phew! I was amazed to say the least. I couldn't give her a lecture thanks to my mindset of the "modern girl", but I realized that our parents are at least honest. They voice out what they feel about the way we live. We pretend to be cool about many things we ain't comfortable with.

I will continue to live under the pretence, because I know how I felt about the gyaan I got from everyone around me. Whatever I think is good for me may not be so for someone else. Bah, I feel old suddenly!