Naukari, Naukari, Naukari was what I used to hear as I grew up during the 1990s and 2000s. Getting a naukari (Job) was apparently the greatest achievement of our life. I remember sweet feelings of day dreams in which I had a Naukari, even as a child. I got a Naukari in my twenties and I realised that Naukari is not the Nirvana which I was promised. I would still insist that I am the lucky one as I was provided for a privileged education and I have a socially admired job which provides mental satisfaction and I am not tied to it; since I can leave it behind if I don’t find the zeal to keep going. Not everyone has the satisfaction from their job and worst of all not everyone has a job, hence they are not disappointed yet and still believe that a job is as desirable to them as Silver City is to a Catholic. I admit a job is essential as it helps us make our contribution to human civilization, though at the essence, it is just giving back our share to our fellow humans who helped us so we could grow and be able to pay back, a Naukari is not the ultimate aim of our life and definitely it is not the only way to pay back our share. Therefore instead of day dreaming about getting a job we should be training ourselves so that we contribute to our great civilization with the best of our abilities. Let me narrate an observation to take my point home.

    In the great pandemic year of 2020 I lived in my hometown after eons due to lockdown. After years I had enough time at home to look around to see how my town has progressed in these years and that’s when I met Xyz. It was not the first meeting, I grew up playing cricket with Xyz since we are almost the same age, yet he was already a breadwinner for not only his parents but also for his family of wife and three children while I am still unmarried; and diving deep into Machine Learning for a long term AI Engineering career. Xyz doesn’t have privileged education like I have but he is a skilled negotiator and electrician. I don’t believe that family is a liability but in his case it is. Xyz had the opportunity to build his skill and business as an electrician but there he was stuck in fulfilling the basic family needs.

    I am sure it is very controversial to say it, but I do think that social norms of getting married and having a large family even though one is not financially capable is completely irrational. Though he might still pull off financial success and provide privileged education to his three children, it is unlikely. Imagine in a parallel Universe, Xyz’s parents delayed his marriage, even though he didn’t get a good education, he got ample time to build a small but flourishing business, by the time he is thirty, he is already secure with respect to basic necessities for himself and his family. He is getting married at the age of thirty, and a few years later has a child that went on to receive quality upbringing and education. This is what I call not breeding slaves.

    Many capitalists think that cheap labor is the building block of civilization so they encouraged rampant population growth, they want Xyz to have three children sooner than a single child later because more means cheaper. Capitalism’s obsession with growth is a major reason for human suffering. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not a commie, I am a capitalist too because this is the best system there is for universal growth and improvement of quality of life, yet its obsession with growth is ridiculous. It’s not important to make profit, the profit has to be more than the last profit. However the best part about this system is that while people like Xyz might be influenced to produce slaves, they cannot be forced to produce slaves. The religious groups are even bigger influencers to the slave mentality, for all their moral pretense these religious groups legitimize the african slave trade and they will do all in thier power to influence their followers to produce more, more means better representation and more power to the one who pretends to be jn contact with gods. It’s up to Xyz to ensure he breaks the cycle by providing education to his children before they become a procreation machine.

   I don’t have anything against the number of offspring one should have as long as they are able to provide them with not only the basic necessities but also with quality and pragmatic skills and education. A Billionaire can have ten children and talk all about advantages of high population growth but I know that I cannot afford to have ten children with my salary, though more than number, quality matters. I have been using education in a very generic sense but let me be more specific. Those who are barely meeting their end want their children to grow and get just enough education for a socially acceptable job (I belong to that category), but whose basic necessities are covered would want their children to grow in every dimension possible. While the lower and lower-middle class sends their children to learn Science and Mathematics, the upper and upper-middle class teaches their children art, music, sports, law, taxes, trading, public speaking, foreign languages etc. alongside Science and Mathematics. Even the rich kids clear tough screening for colleges, despite their broad education and in fact it is because of the broad education that they clear difficult screening tests. The lucky children of the lower or lower-middle classes are able to clear the screening for good colleges and jobs; ensuring a steady income for themselves,  while the unlucky ones are left in limbo; without a marketable skill or trade. Irony is that these same folks would produce even more tiny versions of themselves who would not be skilled enough to survive out of predefined jobs and professions. This cycle is perpetually creating new age slaves for those in elite circles. The elite children who receive broad education and are proficient in public speaking, negotiate, persuasion, sports, music etc. are able to make a good life even beyond regular jobs as an entrepreneur or sports person or an entertainer. Overall as a society we are producing low-quality but high volume-cheap human capital which works well for selected few but a lifetime of bondage for the other.

    I know all the people who have access to this essay already have this understanding even if not convincingly. I also understand that people who lack the wisdom cannot be convinced otherwise, imagine going to the marriage ceremony of a 25 year old Xyzs and asking them to cancel the marriage and work on their productivity. There will be flying arrows from everyone else even if it’s not from Xyz themself. Yet the talk must happen, lest the worst of our dystopian nightmares come true. The cycle of breeding modern day slaves must be broken, putting the burden of financial hope on a newly born must be stopped. Anyone who is taking the sacred responsibility of bringing new lives in this world must ensure to provide all the opportunity to them including but not limited to basic necessities and pragmatic education.