good is not cool

In childhood what does one have to do to be good?
He has to fit into the norm, has to maneuver himself into that tiny space of being the “good” child. It might mean being deaf dumb and bind…deaf to the mouthfuls of expletives that one gets to hear daily , dumb to all the hissing and swishing that goes behind the back in school, and blind to any beauty that God has endowed which Is not masculine. Goaded by the heaps of praise from the family members especially from the aunts, and driven by the urge to be recognized as nothing but of flawless character, he has to shroud the colorful part of his character in sacred veils of duty, ethics and self discipline. He has to perform daily work in a clockwork precision and be oblivious to everything in the world apart from the common good.

He is not used to cracking jokes, grown up listening to conversations about politicians and UTI bankruptcies. The greatest jokes have been about how happiness is inversely proportional to desires and how Unit Trust of India is UN Trust of India. In hostel gheraoes when he pops up the same jokes he is told to get banished from sight into his small confinement even which he can’t call his own.

In college and in the corporate world, he has to be when he has to do everything he has suppressed till now. Firing expletives is cool, tracing trajectories of back biting have to be mastered and opposite sex have to be kept charmed. Nascent and innocent, the good guy of childhood stumbles and falls and is laughed at and made a scape goat. He retreats to a corner, makes designs tries to carve a niche but then realized the world has moved on. He is said to be dark, boring unattractive and simply not COOL.

He has to change. The key is to change colors. It is best to smile hard when the word demands and keep quiet when the world smiles at you, only then can you spot a smile in your face when you look at the mirror.