Sonu, Chotu, Bablu and success

 Sonu, Chotu, Bablu...

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**Some parents are very wise. They don't send their children to weddings, ceremonies, or funerals, so their studies are not interrupted.**

**Their children don't visit relatives nor do they like guests visiting their home.**

**They avoid anything that wastes their time.**

**Their parents are very vigilant about their career and personality development.**

**These children live under strict restrictions.**

**They study all day, attend expensive coaching classes, don't eat unhealthy food, and wake up early in the morning for cycling or swimming.**

**They learn about expensive cars, gadgets, and clothing because, sooner or later, they have to live a wealthy lifestyle.**

**Whether these children are of average or exceptional talent, they end up with a good career. Because as soon as they leave school, they are sent to expensive colleges in big cities where they somehow manage to complete their education and get placements.**

**Now these children live in big cities and look down on small towns.**

**They avoid the smell of laborers, rickshaw pullers, and street vendors. They wrinkle their noses at the sight of the narrow streets and dust of small towns.**

**The comings and goings of relatives feel like unnecessary interference to them.**

**Then they move abroad and look down on their own country. They start living a very selfish and narrow life. Now taking care of their parents and keeping in touch with them feels like a burden to them. Preserving the old house, old belongings, and ancestral property seems foolish to them. They want to sell it quickly to make the 'right investment'.**

**In video chats with their parents, these topics often come up.**

**On the other hand,**

**Some children participate in everyone's joys and sorrows.**

**They also go to the grocery store... take their aunt, uncle, or grandmother to the hospital.**

**They help in all festivals, ceremonies, and memorials.**

**Because their parents taught them that one should share in everyone's joys and sorrows and should not shy away from taking care of others and daily chores.**

**These children's parents are not as wise as those other parents.**

**Because they let these children waste their valuable time in unnecessary tasks.**

**Then these children stay in the same city and spend their entire lives fulfilling all family responsibilities and duties.**

**These children cannot build a big career like those other children.**

**So, they are considered unsuccessful and less intelligent.**

**Time passes.**

**Sometimes, those 'successful children' come to small towns in their big cars or flights.**

**They stay in air-conditioned rooms all day, criticize the old house and household. Then at night, they give lectures to these 'unsuccessful children' who roam the city on bikes/scooters about how they have ruined their lives.**

**... The unsuccessful children listen to all this with shame and a sense of inferiority.**

**Then those 'successful children' leave,**

**Giving these unsuccessful children instructions to take care of their mother, grandmother, or grandmother living in the old house, they return to the big cities.**

**... Then, when there is some seepage or repair work needed in the house of those children living in big cities, it is these 'unsuccessful children' who are called upon.**

**For every small or big task of those old parents of the successful children, these 'unsuccessful children' - 'Sonu, Golu, Chotu' rush to help.**

**Sometimes for pension, sometimes for groceries, sometimes for house repairs, sometimes for rituals...**

**When those successful children are working out on a treadmill in an air-conditioned gym in the metros, these small-town 'unsuccessful children' are standing at a shop counter getting their elderly father's eyeglass frames fixed.**

**They could have been successful too. Their talent and hard work were not lacking, but perhaps these children and their parents had more life perspective, that they valued human relationships and social interactions more than wealth.**

**There is no problem with successful children, but if your 'successful children' living in big cities are 'gold', then... these children living in small towns are no less than 'diamonds'.**

**These Sonu, Chotu, Bablu... who rush to help with your every small or big task are more deserving of attention and respect than those career-conscious children.**