Adulting: Still Waiting for the Manual (Indian Edition)

A desi take on how nobody really knows what they're doing, despite what aunty ji thinks

Remember when you were a bachcha and thought adults had it all figured out? That somewhere between 10th boards and getting your first job, someone would hand you "The Complete Guide to Being a Proper Indian Adult" - complete with chapters on when to get married, how to handle relatives' questions, and the ancient art of making round rotis?

Well, plot twist: That manual was probably lost somewhere between Independence and the IT boom. And if it exists, it's definitely written by some uncle who thinks WhatsApp forwards are news.

Education - The Great Marks Race

Our education system prepared us for everything except... well, life. We can solve complex trigonometry problems but can't figure out how to file our own PAN card application. We memorized the periodic table but nobody taught us how to negotiate with auto drivers or understand EMIs.

I realized this when my neighbor's 8-year-old asked me what I studied, and after saying "Engineering," he immediately asked, "But uncle, why are you not in America?" Even kids know the script better than we do.

The truth? Half of us chose engineering because "beta, scope hai," and the other half chose it because our parents filled out the application form. Now we're all "software engineers" who spend our days in meetings discussing things that could have been emails.

Sports and the Great Indian Dream

Every Indian parent wants their child to be the next Sachin or Saina, but only after they become a doctor or engineer first. We grew up playing gully cricket with elaborate rules ("Ball goes to terrace, you're out!") and football with stones as goalposts.

Now as adults, our biggest sporting achievement is climbing three flights of stairs without getting breathless, or successfully completing a morning walk without getting distracted by street food. We watch IPL religiously and argue about team strategies while struggling to touch our own toes.

Friends - The WhatsApp Warriors

Remember when friendship meant sharing tiffin and cycling to school together? Now our deepest conversations happen in WhatsApp groups named "College Gang" where we share good morning messages and argue about whose turn it is to plan the reunion that never happens.

We have three types of friends: school friends who remember when you were weird, college friends who know your secrets, and work friends who pretend to laugh at your boss's jokes with you. All of them will eventually ask you to like their spouse's business page on Facebook.

Love in the Time of Arranged-cum-Love

Bollywood taught us that love meant dancing around trees and fighting 10 villains for your beloved. Reality taught us that love means finding someone whose Netflix preferences match yours and whose family doesn't ask too many questions about your salary.

We have "love marriages" that started on matrimonial sites and "arranged marriages" where the couple chatted on WhatsApp for six months first. The lines are so blurred that even we don't know which category we fall into anymore.

Marriage - The Great Indian Wedding Circus

Nothing prepares you for Indian wedding planning. You'll spend more time discussing the catering menu than you did choosing your life partner. Relatives you've never met will have strong opinions about your mehendi design, and someone will definitely comment that weddings were simpler "in our time."

The best part? After all the drama, photos, and dance performances, married life is basically the same as being single, except now you have to coordinate your Amazon deliveries and someone judges your choice of breakfast cereal.

Family - The Original Reality TV Show

Indian families are the ultimate ensemble cast where everyone has an opinion about everyone else's life choices. Your career decisions will be debated in family WhatsApp groups, your weight changes will be monitored by distant aunties, and your marriage timeline will be discussed more than the Union Budget.

We master the art of selective listening during family gatherings - nodding at unsolicited advice while mentally planning our escape to the nearest corner with good WiFi.

Happiness - The Moving Goalpost

First it was "get good marks, then you'll be happy." Then "get into good college." Then "get good job." Then "get married." Then "buy house." Then "have kids." The goalposts keep moving faster than our ability to reach them.

Meanwhile, our happiest moments are often the simplest ones - finding a good dosa place, getting through traffic without honking, or successfully explaining to our parents why we don't want to join their morning laughter club.

Children - Mini Mes with Maximum Drama

Having kids means you finally understand why your parents said "wait until you have your own children." These tiny humans will question your authority while simultaneously being completely dependent on you for everything, including finding socks they're literally wearing.

Indian parenting is basically wondering if you should be stricter like your parents were or more liberal like you wished they had been, while your child plays Minecraft and speaks better English than you do.

Money - The Great Indian Middle-Class Struggle

We're the generation caught between "money can't buy happiness" and "₹50 extra for express delivery? That's too much." We budget carefully for months and then spend ₹2000 on food delivery because we're "too tired to cook."

Our relationship with money is complicated: we compare mutual fund returns while buying the cheapest vegetables, and we research phones for weeks before buying but will spend impulsively on "limited time offers."

Jobs - The IT Chronicles

Half of India works in IT, and the other half pretends to understand what the first half does. We attend "scrum meetings" and talk about "bandwidth" while our parents tell people we "work with computers."

Office politics here involves navigating who brought homemade lunch to share, whose birthday cake cutting you have to attend, and how to politely decline invitations to colleagues' house-warming ceremonies.

Politics - The WhatsApp University Graduates

We're all political experts now, thanks to WhatsApp forwards and Twitter threads. Family WhatsApp groups have become debate forums where uncles share "important news" and everyone else practices the art of strategic silence.

The real skill is navigating political conversations at family gatherings without offending anyone while secretly checking fact-checking websites under the table.

Travel - Instagram vs Reality

We plan trips based on Instagram potential and end up spending more time taking photos than actually experiencing places. "Let's go to Goa" usually means "let's recreate those beach photos we saw online."

Indian travel stories always include: getting lost because we trusted Google Maps more than locals, finding the one South Indian restaurant in North India, and that one friend who overpacked for a weekend trip.

The Beautiful Indian Truth

Here's what I've learned from our desi adulting experience: Everyone is just trying to balance tradition with modernity while pretending they know the difference between mutual funds and fixed deposits.

That uncle who seems successful? He's probably still asking his wife to handle all the bank work. The aunty with perfect kids? Her children WhatsApp her to ask how to boil eggs. The cousin with the great job? They're googling "how to talk to boss about salary increment" like the rest of us.

We're all just trying to be good Indians while figuring out what that even means in 2025. We want to respect our parents' values while creating our own, earn in rupees while dreaming in dollars, and maintain relationships while building careers.

The Conclusion (Or, What We're All Really Doing)

So here's to all of us desi adults - the engineering graduates working in marketing, the arranged-love-marriage couples, the family WhatsApp group survivors, and the people still trying to make perfect round rotis.

We may not have received the manual, but we're creating our own version - one that includes equal parts tradition and rebellion, family obligations and personal dreams, and definitely more masala than any Western manual could handle.

And honestly? Our improvised version is probably more entertaining anyway. At least it comes with better food and stronger family support systems, even if they come with unsolicited advice.

P.S. If anyone finds the real Indian adulting manual, it's probably with that relative who knows exactly when you should get married, what job you should have, and why you're not eating enough vegetables. Good luck getting it from them.

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What's your most "only in India" adulting moment? Share your stories in the comments - we're all figuring out this beautiful chaos together, one family gathering at a time.