Judgemental Conclusions

I have been thinking to write this post from a long time. This post is about people’s preconceived notions and judgmental conclusions.

It is general human tendency to judge people given every chance. This is sometimes good and sometimes bad. Don’t we have definitions for everything in life? We have several judgments like old people cannot adjust to new age, homemakers don’t have to have a quality/enjoyable life, well educated people can only be respected, a sophisticatedly not dressed person cannot get into a posh mall and the list goes on.

Few years back, I went to a shopping mall. I was there buying a handbag. I met my friend who came with her mother in law. We were talking for a long time and they also accompanied me while I was shopping. My friends MIL suggested few good ones and told me “You can buy whatever you want, because you are earning. Also you might want to take a good one while going to work”.
I was not very happy to hear that. Should only working women buy and enjoy what they want? My friend was hurt even more because she was a homemaker.

I have known few people who have set definitions about homemakers. Many people think that a homemaker does not earn and hence she doesn’t have to spend and live her life. Some divisions in corporate companies are called supporting divisions. These divisions don’t bring revenue to the company. So usually these divisions have very few team lunches and get together parties as the division has to spend from its pocket.
Similarly many of them don’t find it interesting when homemakers have a car of their own, go to beauty saloons, buy a nice dress from Lifestyle, have a smart phone and so on.
The reason behind this is very simple! Homemaker is not an earning member.
The first thing that comes to human mind is why does she need a car? Isn’t it enough for her to have a normal phone?
I feel enjoyment is a perspective. Anyone can enjoy anything and one doesn’t have to qualify for enjoyment. Life doesn’t have to have parameters always. It is totally ones perspective.

Sometimes back xx was contacted by a hiring manager for a job opportunity. xx was a well qualified person and also had few remarkable accomplishments. The hiring manager was a person with an engineering degree from IIT karagpur. This person was founder and CEO of a very small sized company who was hiring people and deploying in client locations. He proposed a deal to xx and forced xx to accept the opportunity. Precisely he was desperate to hire xx. xx very clearly mentioned to him that she was not interested in the opportunity. He was very sarcastic and teased xx that it is so hard to find a job of xx’s choice given the market situation and that she cannot expect anything better than his deal.
Well, here who is this demanding and controlling person to make decisions for others? If xx was from a similar institute, would he have dared to talk like that? Anyone has the right to dream anything and go to any heights they want. Education is completely different from knowledge. Education helps a person to gain knowledge. My theory is it doesn’t matter where one gets educated. Knowledge along with affability; decorum is all the more important. Else that education doesn’t have value.

I have worked with a manager earlier who was born and brought up in a village in Coimbatore. When I moved to the US, he was supposed to pick me up in the airport and help to check in me in to the hotel. This person always talked sarcastically to everyone and no one had a good impression on him. He enquired if my journey was comfortable and if it were my first international travel. When I said yes, his sarcasm went to the extent that he asked if I were excited and peeped out of the window throughout my travel. I was very hurt but unfortunately had to keep my mouth shut as I was destined to work with him for few months. What he did not realize was may be he did that when he made his first travel, but I have traveled enough times within India itself. All it takes for people to get accustomed to new people, place, food, dress is just an exposure. Lack of it is not a criterion to judge someone.

I have many north Indian and hindi speaking friends. Few years back I went to a south Indian restaurant with 2 of my north Indian friends AG and SR. AG likes south Indian food a lot and loved eating in plantain leaf. SR was totally against south Indians, their food and culture. But SR is a good friend of mine. I always gave enough time before knowing someone. May be some of her past experiences made her have such strong opinions against south Indians. AG ate rice with paruppu (lentils) on the plantain leaf and SR did not like it. She thought eating with hand was very cheap and it it did not appear very good to eat that way in a restaurant.
I strongly opposed her opinion. May be that is what she thinks but doesn’t have the right to control the other person who loves to eat that way. Who cares how we eat? We pay money for what we eat and eating with hands does not harm any other person. So what is wrong about that?
I feel silly rules are what we create.

Unfortunately there are several situations like this for many of us. But we remain silent most of the times and let it bother us for years together like how it did for me. A political science graduate is a CEO; a government employee who served the Indian government for several years is a CEO of an IT giant, a Chartered Accountant is a Global HR manager, a scientist is also a painter, an engineer transformed his career into drama, a moderately educated person runs a tv show and the list goes on.
If only scientist should invent we wouldn’t have had monalisa painting.

I feel this world and one’s life is too big to be judged too early.