By Eleanor A Sangma
In typical Asian families, children are often expected to pursue careers either in medicine, engineering, or other “first class” professions. Social sciences, arts and humanities hold little value to them. However, many would agree that the lesser-appreciated fields make life worth living.
To quote John Keating in Dead Poet’s Society, “And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.” Sure, Keating was mostly talking about poetry here, but it can apply to social sciences and humanities. It says much about how a career should never be just about practicality, but a way to live life to the fullest.
Today’s youth are religiously following this way of living. In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift in career choices, from the conventional to the creative. This shift can also be seen in Garo Hills.
Tangkami Marak, the proprietor of Korner Confiserie, tells me about her love for baking, which has become a getaway for her. It allows her to explore herself as an artist. She loves creating different kinds of desserts as it makes her happy.
She says, “It’s like a blank canvas where I can pour my creativity into. I can try out new recipes, ingredients and designs. Some people read books to get away. I bake because it also keeps me busy physically. I find joy even in the smallest moments, such as shopping for ingredients.”
Marak has always been vocal about not going down the path of a government job or the more conventional career options, such as healthcare or engineering. While they’re respectable jobs contributing much to society, it is just not for her.
“The irony is that I didn’t want to work a nine-to-five job, but now I’m working almost 24×7. Yet, it doesn’t feel like working because I enjoy it so much. Besides, I like being my own boss,” she tells me.
Observing people pursuing their passions, Marak is hopeful about the future. For generations, children were brought up with the mindset that education is a means to an end – for professional success in lucrative sectors, preferably government jobs. While they prioritise such jobs, pursuing passion often takes a backseat. There is always the question of how the latter will pay the bills.
“Every time I go to a gathering, some relative walks up to me and asks what I’m doing. When I tell them I bake, they ask me whether I’ve applied for an actual job,” she tells me, adding not everyone can get into government jobs, citing competition and corruption as two major issues.
In addition, many people are extremely talented in different forms of art but less encouraged to go after it. “Many times, the ideal life that the older generation has envisioned for us is not what we want. We are forced to fulfil our parents’ unfulfilled dreams.”
Katta Nisa echoes the notion that there is a generational trauma that hinders people from doing what they want to in life. The face of the band Hoi Hoi Makbil says, “I guess people want something they can’t have, be it falling in love with certain people or expressing themselves or merely having the freedom to choose what they want. That’s what the youth dreams about and consciously or subconsciously, they’ve been trying to fight for it.”
He feels the shift points towards progress as a tribe and a community. People are self-aware and possess clarity, hence, more accepting of different ideas and career paths beyond the conventional choices that are deemed to be ‘safe’.
“It’s not that we don’t want the conventional life choices, we just want to have a say in what we become,” Nisa says.
The artist says there is a level of comfort that we have achieved in our lives, which has made us capable of thinking about the community in a deeper sense, along with the meaning of life. The more we learn to think for ourselves, the more we realize the world is so busy that there are many who might be well paid but are unhappy.
“In this world where we’re eventually going to die, I think it’s sad to die unhappy. We need to learn how to stop time and really think about happiness. One way to achieve that is through the arts,” he adds.
Society comes with certain standards for everyone, a terms-and-conditions agreement.
Children are educated to be workers who can give back to society. Katta says, “That’s not a bad thing, but hustle culture is not that healthy. Hustling is important to an extent, but if it says we need to dismiss the needs of our body and soul for the sake of money, that is not a very smart thing to do.”
Regarding change, he cannot state the duration of this progress or the next steps to maintain consistency, but Katta says there is no doubt about meaningful, collective growth as a society. Pursuing the unconventional could be a reason.
(The writer is a reporter with The Meghalayan)