YOUNGER PRESSURE

This one is for all those younger brothers who've a much more successful sibling ...

"Being the youngest child in the family is a blessing ."

I too believed in this until i got into the world of competition. May be its my life , but people around me want it to shape their way ..

Failure is no longer decided by us . It is the society which decides it . Thank God ! I'm blessed with parents who've not forced me into things which i'm reluctant about . Nor have they compared me with my elder one .

But the circle around you can be so cruel , comparing and intimidating at times when you find yourself somewhere below the levels set by your own bro ...

It all started when i secured lesser marks than my bro in the 10th board exams . 93% is not that poor by any standards , but of course was by the standards my bro had set . People around looked down upon me as if i was earning my bread at their mercy ...

This was my first step into the world of comparison , my first experience of an unexplicable feeling and i experienced the same for the next 2 years also . Whatever i did i was then compared with my bro and i was accused of being below par with my bro .

Man ! i got all screwed up with this as i found even illiterate relatives of mine talking about my weakness in organic chemistry as compared to my bro ..

I've always wanted my bro to be successful in whatever he did but then i cursed him for the marks he secured in organic chemistry ..

"The comparison thing " was driving me mad .

The next big so called failure occurred when my bro got into NIT and me in PEC , a decent college but not as good as a NIT .

People in Pondicherry have always considered PEC a haven . My relatives are elated when i say i do my mechanical engg. in PEC but sneer, when they find my bro in NIT, which just is just disgusting .

Goodness , i got into mech engg. .Else i would have been accused of getting into the benches of TCS in my later years .

I can bear all this . But man ! who wants to study in a " local " college where you are always under the scanner of being seen around with girls or may be in a pub . I seriously wanted to get outta home , but unfortunately just didn't happen .

This was not the worst part . The way i feel whenever my bro tells me how he hangs around with chicks , boozes , bunks classes , plays football all the while makes me " really jealous " .

Whenever he comes home for his sem holidays , i'll have to act his porter and driver . I would have to buy his favourites ( which include .. you know what) . Serve him like a waiter as my mom says " your poor bro , he gets to come home only for a week " . King at college and King at home . Blessed ? who me ?

Man ! he must be the happiest person .

Comparison and playing the host were better devils ...

but now i've got a nightmare to deal with ...

just yesterday my mom put a laddu in my mouth saying " your bro has been placed in HCL tech. for 4 l.p.a " .

My bro being placed was in fact welcome but just that pay made the laddu harder for me to digest .

2 years into coll and i knew that my campus hadn't got someone recruited for even half the pay as my bro .

Now i don't want the cycle to go on once again and people (half of them unemployed ) calling me a failure ... yet again .

And this pressure to perform and get a job is driving me crazy .

... Hopes still alive ...