WP2: Culture and Career

Today I will be conducting an interview with my dad (Amit Govil) about the connection between Indian culture and career choices. The interview process will be extremely easy going with no real formal questions, more like a conversation.

Hi dad, how are you doing today?

Hey Rohan, I’m doing alright, a little nervous about this interview. Hopefully I can give you the answers and insight you are looking for.

Just be honest, no pressure. I am just trying to uncover some truths about Indian culture and how it impacts Indians in general and how it’s impacted us as a family.

Sounds good, let’s give it go!

Let’s uncover your childhood aspirations first. What did you dream to be when you were a teenager?

I played so many sports I couldn’t count them on my 10 fingers. I was a very talented cricketer at the school level and for a while I dreamt of playing cricket at the professional level. Other than cricket I was an extremely skilled billiards player and won many tournaments in Kanpur (childhood city). At the age of 16 I participated in the Himalayan car rally race, and finished second so racing cars was also a big passion of mine. Then in college I played badminton and Tennis for the college team and after I got my first job in the UK, I played cricket for Hampshire, a small pro team along with my job.

Wow, that’s one busy childhood. You work as a technology consultant now, what happened to all your sporting ambitions?

The problem with growing up in a poor-middle class home in 1970’s India is that you can have all the dreams and desires in the world but your true career path is one of 3 things, doctor, engineer, or financial services. I was good at math and physics so I picked engineering as my path and attended the Indian Institute of Technology after I graduated high school.

If you dreamt of becoming an athlete, whether it was cricket or racing cars, or anything you mentioned above, why didn’t you bring it up with your parents as a possible career choice?

(dad starts laughing) If i told my parents when I was 15 I don’t want to go the traditional route and I want to play cricket professionally they would have kicked my ass because I’m too distracted and I am not prioritizing my time properly. Sports has no guarantee and in the Indian culture a parents “job” is to successfully set up their child’s future. If they let me pursue a sport, I may just make it but there is a very high possibility that I don’t make it and if that happens, my parents will feel responsible for setting me up for failure and will feel responsible that I can not provide as well as I should for my family. Education is a safe route where if you follow the correct steps, you will get a job and you can work your way up in the world with continued hard work.

Shouldn’t you get to pick what makes you happy though as it is something you will be doing for the rest of your life?

Indian parents believe that children and teenagers don’t know what the real world is really like, thus kids don’t actually know what will make them happy in the future. If you ask my father now do you think Amit is happy with how his life turned out he’ll say 100%, he has a successful career, a family, a nice house, and the ability to send both his kids to university in the United States, what more does one want in life? If I argue with him no, what would have made me happier is for me to pursue my true passions, he would just argue that I am ungrateful for this path that he helped me choose and that I am delusional in thinking I would have all this if I had picked to pursue a sport.

Can’t you argue that yeah if I pursued a sport maybe I won’t make as much money, maybe I’ll have a smaller house, a smaller car but I’ll be happier day in day out as I am doing what I love to do?

This brings me to another major mentality issue in the Indian culture. This idea of happiness doesn’t exist because the Indian culture for a long time has been extremely competitive. Your child being successful is more important so that others can see how well the child is doing, not how the child actually feels in this life. Why settle for a smaller house when you can have a bigger house. Why settle for a smaller car when you can afford a nicer car? Too much of Indian culture has to do with showing society what you have and that defines happiness in a lot of ways. The problem with this mentality is that it creates a lot more stress as you are constantly worried about how the outside world perceives you, which in my eyes is not happiness. This is why almost 90% of Indian marriages are arranged because the parents want to pick out a spouse that will appeal to society in terms of him/her having a good financial background, a good family. Factors that actually matter like love and chemistry are thrown out the window. God forbid this decision is left to the actual person and not the parents.

Why are you so comfortable with me pursuing a professional sport when you were brought up with this mentality?

I completely disagree with this mentality. It is your life and you deserve the choice to live it exactly how you want to. I noticed from a young age that sport fires you up in a way nothing else does, and the excitement that competition fuels in you is unmatched by anything else. Also, nothing in life is easy. Slogging away at a desk job years on end takes a ridiculous toll on the mind, as does pursuing a professional sport. So might as well slog the hours towards something you love doing, not something you’ll be checking your watch every 20 minutes to see when you can leave. Also, becoming successful following the traditional route is not easy under any circumstance. Your mind, body and soul has to be totally committed to what you are doing and only then after years of work do you taste success. I worked for 18–19 hours 5 days a week for years on end. I want to instill in you that you will need the same kind of dedication, if not more to succeed in professional golf. That’s why following the traditional route has never really seemed like a safe route, it’s just as arduous as following your passions, so might as well follow something you love.

You make a good point, but even if you don’t work as hard in the traditional route, you will still make a salary and are able to support yourself with greater ease than you would be able to if you are an unsuccessful athlete. What are your thoughts on that?

This is a point that stops most people from ever pursuing their dreams. You are in a fortunate situation where even if you fail, you have support from me and mom to perhaps try something else and use your college education to get a job and provide for yourself. However, most families especially in India do not have the financial means to put eggs in both baskets, education and passion. If you come from a lower middle class family, you cannot afford both an education and a sport as this combination can get quite expensive. So it is easy for me to have this perspective as a well off individual in India, however if I wasn’t as financially comfortable, I probably wouldn’t have pushed you to pursue your passion.

What can be done in India to tackle this issue?

The system needs to be looked at. We need to (and have started to) implement the opportunities for kids at a young age to pursue their passion in a pragmatic way. For example, in the US, schools have great sports programs that help kids develop their abilities day in day out and then these kids are rewarded with their hard work with college scholarships. This results in the child being able to pursue his/her passions and then getting the opportunity to fill up a backup basket in case pursuing the passion doesn’t work out. This can be done with not just sports but other types of ambitious career choices, for example acting, film making, or music. The US has a plethora of art schools and film schools whereas India is lacking such institutions. However for all of this to happen and for such changes to sprout, India as a culture needs to existentially change its mentality towards happiness and work towards being a society that isn’t so bothered about society’s perception. If everyone realized this, they would start doing things that actually made them happy. However I think this kind of mentality shift will take a generation or 2 to develop, and I am afraid it may never develop as a lot of these core mentalities have been ground out for eons. It will be upto the dreamers who have been given a chance to inspire and to show families across the country that it is ok to dream and to pursue, because anything is possible.