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?
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2 comments:
I'm still at the training to be a rat stage, even though others say I'm already in the rat stage.
The irony is in spite of being aware of all this, how does one still fall into the rat race? Who is responsible - family, friends, society, media?
Jaff
The new generation is that of compression..from video cassettes to Blu Ray Discs. So soon, there will be only 2 of the 4 stages
Training to be a rat (Which begins at birth) "Beta Hritik ki tarah dance karke dikhao" & the likes..
This will be followed by the rat race. The race gets so dangerous that people dont live long enough to realise that they are not rats & it was not worth it!!
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