Why Indian Kid's Crush Their Parents Dreams

I feel bad for Indian parents. They are portrayed as backward, narrow-minded or oppressive.  The usual refrain of " my son will become an engineer" or "my son will become a doctor" is all that one expects from them. It is as if they have no better pass-time than to hound their children into a job of their choice. 

From Google

If Martin Luther King Jr was Indian, his speech would be titled 'I have a dream,for my son'. Most youngsters 'give in' to their parents whims and dejectedly spend well-earned money (their parents,not theirs) on fulfilling the maa-baap ka dream. Others renegade, rebel and dissent. They triumphantly disobey their parents wishes.  They spend well-earned money (again,parents) on taking up commerce or (heaven forbid) arts. They do things their way. More often than not, 'their way' includes multiple existential crisis and being clueless about what to do after the coup succeeds. Being an Indian kid, I can tell you that the greatest motivation I get is when I'm doing the exact opposite of what my parents ask me to. Even popular Bollywood movies demonise parents. In Wake Up Sid, Ranbir Kapoor is convinced that his father's bathroom shower company is the last place he should work. Udaan shows friends in a bar lamenting the weight of family business that will soon be placed on their shoulders. Rang De Basanti goes a step further with a lead character killing his dad for forcing him to study abroad (okay, I might have embellished that one slightly). The point is, one way or another, we are out to kill our parents dreams for us. We find their dreams to be irritating, boring or burdensome. We grieve about these problems on Facebook (with laptops that they've provided us). We promptly declare that "they
don't understand us". But as far as comprehending people goes, do we understand them?

Most parents have seen the flip-side of life. They know how bad things can get and will do anything in their power to keep us out of that situation. Hence, they dream for us. They don't have a personal vendetta against us, they want to see us live comfortably. Of course they panic when we crush their dreams. We are like the gigantic and erratic wave that washes over their sand-castle. We are long-term investments. They expect certain returns from us. If  their investment says he would rather be a stand-up comedian than a software engineer, this could affect their returns. All we need do is prove that we are still a viable investment. Not all of us are cut out for the jobs our parents envision.  All we need to do is show them we will be okay. If you have a dream, make sure you are doing everything in your power to achieve it. Only then can you crush your parents dreams.