When I was about eleven or twelve, I started keeping a diary. But, I didn’t write about my day. I wrote poetry, short essays, stories and scripts instead and when I was fifteen, I printed them all and spiral bound them in something I called “The literary works of Preeti Farias – Part 1” ( Fancy title don’t you think 🙂 ). Even though my parents thought I had a decent bit of talent and I was encouraged to write; the idea was to treat it as a hobby, never as a career. It was looked at as something I could do when I was forty-five, had earned a fair bit, and had chosen to retire early from a regular job. The regular job for me (since I had no interest in medicine or engineering) is a finance one. So, I write on the side.
Today, parents are a little more accepting of “alternate” careers. Photography, journalism, anchoring TV shows, music, writing were all 
supposed to be hobbies when I was growing up. But, it’s changing. These days, a lot of people with insistent parents end up pursuing professional courses only to start doing what they are passionate about once they are through. They end up having the added benefit of having the more “acceptable” degree to fall back on in case it doesn’t work out like they want.
True, it might be a while before just about any child of Indian descent can walk up to her/his parents and say s/he wants to be a chef in a restaurant or something like that but, there is hope! The tide is turning and I honestly think that the drive to follow dreams is thriving in the new generation.
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Written for IndiSpire on Indiblogger as well as for the Ultimate Blog Challenge
Fuchsia Outbursts 
Interesting read !
http://www.ananyatales.com/
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Thanks Ananya! Welcome here! 🙂
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In my case, I did engineering and worked for 6.5 years in that field, before I decided to chase my dreams. In my case, my professional experience is helping me, and hence I am fine with all those years of “drudgery”. Although, I must admit that even my previous career was my own choosing!
I think, after a point, at least when you are independent enough, parents cannot “force” you beyond an extent. We are ourselves responsible for what we make out of our lives.
Destination Infinity
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True, eventually, all our careers are of our own choosing. If we really didn’t want to pursue them, we would have fought harder against them. Thanks for stopping by Destination Infinity! Welcome here 🙂
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I hope that time comes soon 🙂 Well expressed 🙂
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I think it will…the next generation will definitely have a better chance of pursuing their dreams than we did.
Thanks Anmol!
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But now a days out of the box careers are in trend and children of this generation are not going to be engg-medical-art-commerce graduate as of us ..
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Yes…but that is among the less conventional parents not with everyone. Perhaps there will be fewer forced engineers and doctors in this generation than in our.
Thanks for stopping by!
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Most of the time, it is the parents who are responsible for kids taking up only conventional careers. For things to change, parents must change their attitudes. Sadly, most kids who complain bitterly when their parents prevent them from going in for careers of their choice grow up to do to their children exactly what their parents did to them.
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Yes…it is true that parents are the main decision makers when it comes to career choices…but the number of such cases are reducing with time. Don’t you agree?
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Earlier, the child had no say in the choice of his/her career. These days, in most cases, the child chooses her/his career, but there is a lot of visible and invisible pressure put on the child by parents, relatives, teachers and, surprisingly, by peers.
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That is right. But at least it is improving now.
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Yes the Tide is turning !
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Slowly but surely! 🙂
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“The Tide is Turning” yes, surely it is; slowly and steadily but it’s turning. I am really inspired by your early retirement. I intend to do so.:)
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Haha…yes. It has always been the plan to retire early and then spend my time covered in ink so to speak 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!
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This is the problem with many Indians spread around the world who has built a certain mindset that fetters progress. However, creative fields are becoming more acceptable and it’s all bout listening to our hearts.
http://vishal-newkidontheblock.blogspot.com/2014/07/an-orkut-love-story-chapter-20.html
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True Vishal. But I think that’s a little different now than it was before. Children nowadays are going for their dreams more and more.
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