Urbanization of the Seven Ages of Man (& also woman)

If William Shakespeare were to write his famous monologue - All the world's a stage, again in 2008 am sure it wouldnt have seven ages.
Just to refresh my memory the seven ages as described by him were (hail Google!) -
Infant, school boy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon (semi old age) & second childhood

Thanks to the rapid pace of development (not sure if it really is) around the world, the seven ages shrinks to four ages.

The four ages being -
1) infant
2) training to be a rat
3) rat race
4) late realization - race was not worth it &i am not a rat.

Infant
The infant still mewls & pukes in the nurse's arms as in the Shakespearean time.
From the nurse's arm the infant goes straight to the maid's arm because the mom has to join the dad in the race...rat race.
(not restricted to the Mumbai full Marathon, Delhi Half Marathon, Bangalore Quarter Marathon..... )

Training to be a rat
This age starts at around 6-7 yrs (may be earlier in case of overzealous parents) and can run upto late 20's.
The human rat as opposed to his namesake aspires to be highly skilled, multi tasker, all rounder & dreaming of getting into colleges starting with I's & earning salary which has zeros greater than the inflation rate at that point of time.
The training involves classes in maths - music - muscles (health) to name a few.

Rat race
This race only has a start line; the finish line is only a mirage.
When we start running the race we realize that what we trained for is not exactly what we need to win the race.
The best part of this race is that even if a rat is ahead of a dozen of his other fellow rats he
feels he’s losing out the race. The race is a good leveler though… coz the rat at the front and the last rat feel almost the same… a sense of inadequacy.

Late realization - race was not worth it &i am not a rat
After years of running the human rat realizes that the race has no finish line…and he has spent all his life doing just one thing i.e.) running & nothing else…. he also realizes that
he is still at the bottom of Maslow’s need hierarchy pyramid fulfilling the basic needs of roti (at a five star restaurant), Kapda (of a designer label) & makan ( at a luxury by invitation only property zone). It also dawns on him that he is not a rat but a human being….

My only question…why are human beings always after being what they are not – rats, dogs, asses….we have better options don’t we?

Do you see what i see..? i see SXC

We had a professor at St Xaviers Calcutta (SXC) called Prof Saha who taught business mathematics.
Saha didnt teach our section but the other commerce sections.
This was the time when the US had its "smoke him out" policy fully out against Osama bin laden.

Xaviers as with most of the old Jesuit institutions had beautiful gothic architecture.
This beauty translated into amphitheatre style seating, long corridors & huge classrooms.
This architectural beauty also made sure that if you didnt whisper your voice would reach atleast three - four adjacent classrooms
when there is pin drop silence.
Pindrop silence at Xaviers was a reality not only when Fr Felix Raj the Vice Principal was on his rounds but also otherwise.

Now coming back to Prof Saha....he was small, diminutive & generally a harmless creature from the Indian hinterland.
Harmless even when tortured by stupid, irrelevant doubts by sleepy but bright commerce guys.
He was more African in looks than even a true blue African native.
The US agenda against Osama caught up with Saha sadly enuf.....
Whenever Prof Saha came up the staircase passing through the classes filled with those sleepy bright commerce students
there would be this bee like humming which filled the corridor " Oooo Sahaaa Bin Ladeeen"

Prof Saha showed infinite amount of patience which just strengthened the bee like humming to the almost lion like roar.
This soon became the talk of the town almost ( atleast near Park Street i guess).

Then one day almost a month after this had started a class tried the same stunt ...this time when he was in the middle of
the explanation of a complex maths problem with his back to the class & face towards the black board.
As soon as the " Oooo Sahaaa Bin Ladeeen" anthem gained momentum..Prof Saha jumped & turned (simultaneously)
suddenly now facing the class in pin drop silence..threw the chalk in his hand at the boy who was in the middle of the class...
simultaneously yelling "thor baap osama binladen"

I am sure had this incident taken place now ... the humming would have been " Oooo baamaa " & Prof Saha wouldnt have reacted the way he did.