Choice... What's that?

The Indian race is faced with a cruel choice: work or daytime Doordarshan.
- Unknown

I know the above maxim no longer stands true, because there is now YouTube, Fashion TV, Pogo and many more. But, the message that the maxim conveys – that life is not about choices – stands true even today.
Whoever said, “Life is full of choices,” needs to do a re-think. Let us start from the beginning of the end of our freedom to choose.
I wanted to be born a boy (and wanted to give all the other guys a run for their money) but was born a girl. And unfortunately, haven't yet learnt the art of giving the guys a (literal) run for their money **guffaws**.
Then the naming happened. You don't understand how bad I feel deep down inside… because you may have some popular name like Pooja, Reema or Radhika. Try living 30 years of your life with a name like “Charu Chhibber” and the legions of impaired versions of both, the first as well as the last name. Worse, even your nick name is just too good when it comes to winning you misnomers. You don't believe me???  Well how about "Chalu" (clever), "Jharu" (broom), "Chaaoo" (whatever that means), "Chhillar" [meaning peal (of something) in Punjabi], "Chillar" (lose money/ change), “Chik Chik”, “Cheeky”, “Chikni” etc etc...!!!  Guess, this explains why the naming ceremony is conducted when the infant is still asleep in the cradle. Had I been awake and been able to walk, I would have walked out that very day. Talk of choices…
I never had a choice of school I would go to. It was the city's most sought-after girls' convent from the very beginning. If only my father had allowed me, I would have been happy to graduate from the "LOVE Dale" across the road **rolling eyes**.
When the hormones started flowing, there were no guys around to catch the eye balls in the boring all-girls' school. To make matters worse, never did they give me a good-looking young male class teacher. I think it was a 55-year-old man drenched in some physics and some chemistry in the name of male teacher. But chemistry there was none between him and his all-girl students. His receding hairline, baby-bump-belly and booming sarcasm-filled laughter only reminded each one of us how unwanted he was, despite being the only male among 56 girls. (Sensible girls are not attracted to fat old men, mind you!)
Outside school, either of my over-possessive and over-protective parents would tag along everywhere. If not them, then my elder sibling would follow me more faithfully than the Vodafone pug follows the cute kid.
College was worse. My choices were SD College or GC-46. All two selected from among the rubble because they were co-ed (yeah Chandigarh sucked...with just two co-ed colleges back then. Things haven't improved much). And look where I eventually landed…GCG-11, yet another all-girls' institution. My weird love for journalism had everything to do with it because none of the two co-ed colleges in the city offered journalism at the undergraduate level. What they thought about journalism and co-education, I do not know and don't want to know either!  
The very concept of work is against choice. None of us like to work. Of course, here I am ruling out all those men and women who are regulars to office because they sit next to a pretty dame or hunky dude (respectively) who has only recently joined and is yet to censure them. At least that is what this guy called SS, who sits next to me in office, feels.
Unless of course you stay in the US of A, marriage comes after work but before children. But this is changing fast in our country. In India, children in dustbins come before marriage.
The older you become, the less choices you have. Take me for example: All my relatives, friends, colleagues say, the older I get, the fewer choices I will be left with. Time alone will tell is what I say to them before guffawing like crazy.
That you are left with no choice but to read this stupid post? That's bad. You might as well carry a crown of thorns on your head. But then, is that a choice?