Parents impose career choices on children irrespective of the talents and interests the child has.

Arpita (name changed) a student of Class XI, meets me on a Zoom call for a career coaching session. We meet once a week and mostly talk about things other than career options. I later get a call from her harried mother who wants her to quickly decide about her career path and get cracking. As a career counselor, while it is important for me to be able to guide her, I am caught between justifying my fee and scaffolding her by simply talking about her anxieties and fears. She feels a great deal at ease and is assured that I am not judging her from the prism of the choices or the lack of them. She is an artist/actor and the truth is she wants to pursue a career in acting. Her dream is to get into the National School of Drama (NSD) and do meaningful theatre. But her dilemma is that while her mother feels it is an underpaying career mired with controversies and struggles, for her father, being a theatre artiste is not even a career. This was the perfect brew for the storm of stress between her and her parents. The truth of the matter is Arpita is not alone, but surprisingly such rigidities still exist in a lot of families.

The Reluctant Engineer

We got Career Forte's mentor, Yogendra Tiku, a renowned actor on board. Many would have seen him in numerous movies such as English August, Queen, Parmanu, Neerja, to name just a few. Yogi, to his friends, went trailing back into his growing up days in Allahabad. He was a performer, a multi-faceted youngster who sang, acted in theatres and radio plays, and was exceptional in studies. He could relate to Arpita's exasperation. His father was keen that he should become an engineer. That was the dream a majority of middle-class parents nurtured. As a youngster, Yogi was attracted not so much to Bollywood and the remunerative lure but rather to be on stage and get applauded. "The cheer from the crowd is an intoxicating feeling," he adds. Yogi, reminisces about how he was not allowed to go for the interview call from the The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and was forced into pursuing Engineering. But destiny had a design for him. After completing his Engineering, he got a job at the Home Ministry (Govt. of India) and was posted to Ahmedabad. He got involved in doing musical nights and later went on a tour to Africa with his troop. Yogi didn't return to India for the next 8 years . He quit his Government job, much to the duress of his parents, and stayed back in Kenya. He worked in Sanyo and alongside did innumerable charity musical concerts, English, Gujarati, Urdu, Punjabi theatre, interviewed the likes of Mr.Sunil Dutt befriended Jalal Agha, and many Bollywood stars who visited Kenya for stage shows. Once back in India, he continued doing TV serials, and started getting offers from Bollywood. The rest, as they say, is history. He feels blessed that he eventually got a chance to do what his heart was always set on.

The Middle Path.

Arpita was keen to speak with Yogendra Tiku to get an industry perspective. After seeing her acting assignments, he felt that her fabric of work in school was promising. But she needed to do more. "Acting is in you or not. It's an inborn talent and one has to practice and hone the various skills involved in acting. This is acquired from able teachers either in acting schools or from theatre itslef," is what Tiku reiterated to her. She needed a Graduation degree and more theatre experience to get into the coveted National School of Drama. She has to master her craft. But her passion for Theatre is undeniable and if acting is taken out of her she will be emotionally distressed, were our observations which we communicated to her parents. Since her parents cannot afford to send her to any international acting institute, Arpita has to be in India and work out her options.

The Resolution

We went back to our coaching sessions with Arpita feeling more confident about going to college. She is convinced that doing a graduation Programme from a good college will give her ample opportunity to build her portfolio and hone her skills. She plans to participate in challenging competitions and enroll for short courses during her winter break and summer holidays. She is hoping, like all of us that the Pandemic will be over by then.