The Famous IF Then Else Condition

I somehow was not able to come up with a title more apt than the one I kept for this post of mine. I guess this particular "condition" has contributed the most in making me think. The amount of introspection that I have done in the last ten months, or so, has been largely due to it.

Anyone reading this blog (if at all someone is) must know about the "If Then Else Condition". It’s the same that we use in programming languages. I had used this umpteen number of times during my engineering days but then had never realized it creeping into my life. I was oblivious of its presence, but it was there with me. Making important decisions of "my" life and making me follow a pattern devised by someone else.

Most of you may be puzzled as to how a simple IF Then Else Condition could’ve decided someone's fate. Rethink. There must have been some symptoms of this in your life. Don’t you carry some of the common beliefs that most of our parents have had? Like "My son is good in Mathematics. He is surely going to become an Engineer'' or "My Daughter secured A+ in biology she would be appearing entrance for MBBS".

I have been adhering to such conditions. They were never set by me. was good at mathematics; so, I had to become an engineer. So here I was ,barely 15 days after my board examinations, sitting in a packed class of 45 odd aspiring IITans , religiously solving complex Trigonometry equations . I am sure there were quite a few like me who had the patience of sitting through that 3 hr long class just because they could have ‘Kalia's chicken champ’ after the class.

After a few hiccups I did clear an engineering entrance exam and entered a good college. The first three years were good. The creepy "condition" had not made its appearance. One day I called up my parents and my Dad asked me "Beta MBA nahin kar rahe ho kya?".There it was. I knew it was back. This time I had made a decision that I won’t fall into the trap of this "loop”. I was not sure about doing management; so, I decided to get some work ex.

My company was a little too employee friendly. There was absolutely no work for the so called developers. It’s bewildering how this very word has lost all its significance in just 10 months. I started feeling guilty as I was not working on the week days and this guilt pushed me to enroll in the TIME cat coaching center. The moment I entered the class I had the same feeling as I had in my first tuition class for engg entrance exams with the only difference in the latter being that the class comprised of 80 plus students. In one of the classes I asked a lady sitting beside me as to why did she want to do an MBA.With a grin on her face she said "There is no other way that I can postpone my marriage”. There were some other weird answers to this question as well like "My friend has challenged me” or "Both my room mates are preparing for GREE I need to do something”. I guess these guys were in the same state of confusion as I was.

One of my friends did argue that an Indian student has limited options and a lot of responsibilities which contribute to his/her decision making or rather his/her inability to take decisions. I agreed with his argument to some extent . But there were still a lot of questions which were unanswered. Questions like ‘why should I do higher studies to prove I am successful in life?’ or ‘why someone with a better car or a better house should be more successful than I?’

I guess the fact that most of us associate success with money would answer some of the above questions. I wouldn’t deny that I want money and fame in life but definitely not at the expense of hundreds of question marks. So lets not give our lives in the hands of conditional statements and question marks .As one of my writer-friends aptly said, "Of all the kinds of imprisonments that we find ourselves living in, one of the worst is to carry a question mark as a legacy of our past or as a precursor of the future."