Give me sunshine, Give me some rain

Give me sunshine, Give me some rain,
Give me another chance, I wanna grow up once again.

Depicting a youth who is disappointed with the ways of the world, he sings that he wants to live once again in which he would like to lead his life along another path. He wants to be somebody else. A noble cause and true for many rather most people.

The song (and the movie) is a comment on attitude of today's (and yesterday's) parents: Engineer/Doctor or nothing. There are many people with talent in a different field who have failed in life as they could not achieve the Engineers or Doctors degree which their parents pushed for. On the way they not only lost many years of their life but also all of their self-confidence. Only a few can ever manage to come out of those failures in a field for which they
were not made and succeed in their another field. The rest will just be reminders of failures of the 'Great Rat-Race'.

BUT, most of my friends are fans of this song. The people I am talking about are from premier institutes successful in education as well as work (if salary is what defines success in work). They are supposed to be among the 'lucky' ones with right kind of talent to succeed in today's world, talent for logic, maths science. All of them, children of proud parents, who have seen them gain everything their parents dreamt of.

But why do these people like this song? Are they being empathetic? Unlikely in this fish-eats-fish world. More likely its a form of self-pity which leads them to relate to this song. After all, everybody has regrets of the past. 'What-if-I-had' is a thought more common that generally accepted.

The relevance of this song in this subset of population shows the depth of malice in Indian education system. One of the most successful class still thinks that they could have done better had their teachers behaved differently. Its a proof that although a person succeeds in their chosen field, they still loose a lot on the way to gain success. The pressure on even those who are successful prevents people from achieving their best.

At the same time, the fact that this generation has this realization springs some hope that the next generation will be much better off than the current generation. The education will be more fulfilling and wholesome. The children not pushed towards anything other than enjoying while learning. That will be a revolution I am looking forward to. That and only that can transform our country and our world in one generation. Or may be I am too optimistic. Time will only tell.