Being Rebellious- A Choice or an Escape

The other day I read about the “Rebellious Kids” syndrome that almost all household suffer from. Personally I have known how it feels to be rebellious. I never wanted to be a rebellious child , I was always that young little obedient girl but then I started reading. I read a lot about equality, sexist nature of society, feminist movements and that liberated my soul. The things that used to go unnoticed started making sense to me and so I started retaliating. I did not become rebellious out of the need of becoming cool or just to sound different. I changed to being rebellious because the inside pressure was killing me day and night. A dormant volcano had suddenly become active. The lava of my thoughts was scathing my soul. I wanted to talk it out with my family, I wanted to make them realize that there are some basic flaws in the way I have been brought up. But then my thoughts were too revolutionary for them, way too modern because I was interacting with books and they with the society. Everything that we do is scrutinized by the society we live in. They rate us, they mark us as good or bad. Eventually many people succumb to this and never rise. The worst part is this same very society changes as soon as you get fame and everything wrong that you might have done changes to great!! Well I am digressing from my topic.

Lets get back to being rebellious. My first act of retaliation was when I demanded equal rights for my brother. Not that I belonged to an uneducated family but yet the gender prejudices were still alive. My parents never approved the way I led my life which led to arguments every other day. At first I got scared when they raised their voice but then I started to raise my voice too not out of disrespect but because I wanted to be heard.  My father never saw a perfect daughter in me because I was rigid, had opinions, could debate and at last I refused to being stopped. Examples of other kids of the society made no impact on my ear drums neither did the remarks and taunts of my relatives. It is not that I did not care. I did. But then I did not decide the way they lived their lives so why should have I let them do that for me? I was growing up and seeing everything, I was learning. I did not want some one else’s experiences to learn. I wanted my own. Nobody would know exactly how it feels to be burned unless you actually get burned. I was ready for pain and suffering that my actions brought  but I was not ready for the sense of being under experienced.

Sadly my parents could never relate to me the same way I couldn’t relate to them. For them roaming with boys, late night calls were a sin not realizing that maybe I was doing something important. You tell me in a country like India where the sex ratio is some 800 to 1000 almost all girls will have more male class fellows. For me their unending prayers and worships was intolerable because I did not feel the need to bother God for each and every petty thing.

Alas we were poles apart. We still are but somewhere I have made peace  with them being around and objecting to everything I do.