Letter from a Young Seeker

 

From my young friend.

"I did my B.Tech Honours in 2012. I never was attracted to corporate world so I declined TCS offer letter.

I wanted to feel like I'm giving back something, because I think I have had a privileged life and it feels like a moral commonsensical duty. I feel like I am only consuming. Our lives just create demands.

I thought public services in india offer a grassroot level exposure. I went to Delhi to prepare for civil services exam. I cleared JNU entrance exam for Sociology MA but then left it because I had already covered their curriculum in my preparation.

I then joined SBI as probationary officer meanwhile. For one year i was posted in a small town in Karnataka and the sudden change was excruciatingly hard for me. I got transferred to Jaipur because of failing health.

Recently my health has improved and i cleared RAS exam because banking certainly doesn't feel like public service. It's like any other profit making business. However in the course of preparation for both IAS and RAS and my time in the bank, I have realized that we have all accepted a certain level of hypocrisy and pretence.

We label it as "way of world". I read many books on metaphysics and philosophical discourses on meaning of life etc and it made me feel better for a while. I can't really explain it but most of us live a lie.

Why do we need houses big enough so that a maid needs to clean it for us? Why do we need fast paced life where we are just cogs in the economic machinery? Why are we "unsuccessful or failures" if we refuse to keep up with the sheer stupidity of capitalism/consumerism?

While I want to be a civil servant because of the joy of reading and the hope that it provides enough resources and authority, society around me makes it a prestige issue. It's all thoroughly confusing. I m not sure what it is that I can give back...i just want to be less of an ignorant burden on the world if nothing else.

I am going on about life, waiting for things to take shape.

When i make myself the happiest, I certainly upset my elders and confuse the normal folk. Want to be as rooted and grounded as possible, but it makes life extremely difficult because I am tired of explaining. And then i m tired of finding my own answers...Its like talking to a wall.

How, how can we just assume that poverty, inhuman behaviour, sheer difference in privilege is just normal? There is something very very wrong in our world and its not even visible to others. How can we just turn a blind eye to our own consequences!!!?

I am sorry, I have only been complaining and not offering a solution, but it's rare to find a non-bookish environment for such dialogues.

Thanks once again, I hope I get to learn soon."