A world without borders, religions… and parents.

We like to attribute our success to our hard work. The humble ones among us attribute it to others who have helped us to be where we are. The religious ones often attribute it to God, some to their parents, teachers, mentors or friends. This is a trait of humility that we are taught is good to possess. Seldom do we thank our stars that we were born in a situation that we did. Birth is the most unfair thing that can happen to a human being. It is something that we have no control upon. And it defines our fate. We inherit our nationality, our state, our spoken language, our religion, our riches, our parents, our society, our social class, our food preferences, our political inclination and many more things that define us, at the time of birth. It defines how I am going to be looked upon and treated by the rest of the world for the rest of my life.

I was born in India, a developing nation of which everyone around me were proud of. I was taught to salute the flag on every Independence day and feel proud. And I did so. I was told and taught to despise the government and everything about it, and I was taught to love my country. Though I knew and lived the corruption, saw the atrocities of the powerful against the poor, witnessed the obscene difference in the living standards of the rich and the poor, read and saw the vengeful and violent animosity between people of different religions of my country, and yet I was proud of it. I was taught to hate my neighbouring country and go into a frenzy, whether we beat them in a cricket match or at a war front. I was a patriot or that is what I was made to believe. I went on to make a failed attempt to join the Indian army after finishing my engineering.

I was born in the state of West Bengal to a Marwari couple. It gave me a confused identity, that I still carry. People consider me to be a Bengali and a fish eating non-vegetarian, not that I loathe any of it. I was an outsider in a state of Bengalis. From my childhood, I quickly made myself comfortable at the Maru jokes being thrown by my bengali friends. It was easy for me to do so being from a non business and a working class family.

I was born in a conservative Hindu family that was politically aware. My mother is an apolitical god fearing person while my father is an agnostic BJP follower. I learnt to chant the Hanuman Chalisa when I was 8 years old and it comes to my rescue even today when I am chased by mad dogs on a lonely street. I was taught to love Rama more than Ravana. I was convinced that what happened after Godhra was justified. I could befriend Muslims but falling in love with a Muslim girl was a strict no. Falling in love, for that matter, was a no. The only religion that I could ever learn about from my surroundings was Hinduism and hence the only religion that I felt I had the right to find faults with was Hinduism.

I know four languages — Marwari, Bengali, Hindi and English. I am a vegetarian by birth and learnt to eat eggs with my bengali friends. Meat is still a no no.

I was born in a middle class family when the only goal for my dad was to work and earn money so that we can live and his kids can get an education. The only thing that my mom ever focussed was our education. She sacrificed all the small pleasures of life to save on every single penny that she could to put into our education.

That education has taken us far from where we were. It made me travel and meet people from other parts of the planet and live with them for some time. I met people, who before starting work and after finishing studies leave their countries to travel the world for almost a year! It is not even a dream that most of us Indians can afford to have. I went to countries whose priorities were to ensure highest quality drinking water running through taps, to improve the quality of spec of dirt on the roads, to make the cities more beautiful than they already were. I went to countries where prostitution was legal and I also went to countries where those that solicit prostitution were prosecuted and not the ones who provide the service. And all these are not even a part of the problems that my country is ready to take on. Should I thank my stars for having been born where I did or should I wish that I was born elsewhere, in a more developed nation? Humility forces me to say no. There are nations that are harder to live in.

My birth defined me in more ways than that I can change. Today, the more I read, the more I like the idea of a religion free world. Religion often makes us vulnerable to manipulation. There cannot be a religion greater than humanity and yet humanity is often put aside in our quest to be loyal to our religious beliefs. I am inclined towards a vegan diet more from a health perspective than my nonexistent love for animals and I have fallen in love innumerable times already and each time with a different woman. My social circle has never allowed me to fall in love with a non Hindu girl as yet. I am learning German on duolingo and I so badly want to learn French. And as my interest in politics grows and I start knowing about the current state of affairs of the world, the idea of a border free world entices me.

The growing knowledge and understanding of the world has altered a lot in me that was defined at birth and it has taken a good long 35 years! Today there is this lingering question, why should birth have so much power that it defines so many things for me? Can we remove all the boundaries? Let there be no inheritance at birth. No nationality, let there be a border free world. How far can we stretch? No religion, no spoken language, no social class, no society, no food preferences and no political inclination. Let people learn and choose them over a period of time. But what about parents? Can we say no to parents too? Who will do the parenting?

Can the kids be given to institutions once they are born and the institutions bring up the kids? When I read about it for the first time, it seemed to be a preposterous idea. My love for kids came in between but then it does not need me to be a parent — the idea of a parent often is to own me just because someone was chosen to give birth to me. I never had a say. Today as I see and want a border free and a religion free world, I am willing to give the idea of a parent free world an attempt too.