Life's little choices

Looking back at your life so far, have you ever wondered about what prompted you to make those little choices in life? Your likes and dislikes, your favorite color, your favorite animal, your favorite dish? How does it feel a few years later? Do you still feel logic, reasoning and sound rationale was the biggest deciding factor? Hmmm ... Well think hard again!

I spend a bit of of time every now and then introspection (some would argue that its a little more than the national average, but I couldn't care less) about this. I've come to the conclusion that while the biggest decisions (career and job) were sort of (notice I didn't say completely) backed by rationale, most of my petty likes and dislikes evolved from nowhere! My brother is only a year older than me ... and as a result of peer pressure, rebelliousness, and more importantly, to appear cooler - we'd fight over almost everything. Mom and dad did everything within their powers to make sure we never fought - they'd even get the same book labels, lunch boxes, bags and dresses (I remember the times when we'd make faces if the others' dress cost even a wee bit more than your's while shopping at Chellarams, our family store in Majestic).

I thought whales were the kings of the ocean, he claimed sharks were better. I liked the buses and lorries made by Ashok Leyland, while he preferred the Tatas. We'd spend hours sitting atop the famous double-decker buses ... route number 131 and 134 ... jostling in our seats to see who'd count more buses from our favorite bus maker (I still believe Ashok Leyland is better because the double deckers themselves were made by them ;)). My brother thought bedsheets were cool, while I liked blankets. This was re-inforced so much that for many years I wouldn't sleep without my favorite black blanket (I hope amma has saved this for me). I still think he liked my dad more and I loved my mom a little bit more as a kid. The competiton spilled over to food too. He loved jehangiris ... and while I secretly might have liked them at some point, I decided to settle for its lesser cousin, the jalebis for good. He made up more stories with lion as the villain, while I tried to convince him that unlike the reckless tiger, a lion would never kill unless it was really hungry and wanted food. With movies stars (Kamal Vs. Rajini) and cricketers (Dravid Vs. Ganguly), our fights got only more violent and drawn out.

So how much do you think these choices affect you? My brother likes sharks even to this day, while I still think they're lean-and-mean compared to the gentle giants. I still prefer lions over tigers, blankets over bedsheets, jalebis over jehangiris, Leylands over Tatas, violet over black and Kamal over Rajini.

Deeper down, my life's little choices were fiercely driven by the desire to appear different from those around you. I think it's probably true for my brother as well and he still stands by his choices. He won't even consider crossing-over to my side on these matters!

As for Ganguly, he's still the Bengal tiger .... errr lion who's better than Dravid!