With impeccable timing and sense of occasion, I watched “Revolutionary Road” on 14 February. It’s just as well I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day. I found the movie very scary.

I’ve always hated the concept of suburbia, and the thought of living in suburbia. Since I was a child, I had daydreams of escaping, of travelling to distant lands. I wanted to be a doctor, a marine biologist/scientific researcher, a war reporter, a photographer/journalist for National Geographer, a fashion designer, to write, to work for an NGO and/or for environmental/animal causes, to start my own company, or to become a CEO. I was confused but exhilarated, filled with hope about the vastness of my horizons.

I didn’t want a suburban house with the proverbial white picket fences. I didn’t want to settle down, and let my soul petrify in the stillness and sterility of suburbia. That is why I am ambivalent about children. On one hand, I like the concept of having a mini me, of nurturing a new life, full of potentiality. On the other hand, I’ve also always seen children as a symbol of death – mine, that is. Children would entail sacrifice, the burial of my dreams, they would nccessitate having a steady job, being sensible, sedentary, stable, still, stifled.

It’s funny… given how I’m all diffused, with desires that run amok in different directions, and my innate restlessness… one would perhaps have expected me to identify with April Wheeler, Kate Winslet’s character. The strong woman, who had the courage to leave it all behind – sell the house and car, have her husband quit his job and move to Paris, without a particularly concrete plan.

And yet, I feel that, even now, even these past few years, I have slowly sleepwalked towards suburban conformity. So yes I’m a banker, yes I live in a city (London) rather than in the ‘burbs. Nonetheless, it is the mindset, not the form, that defines suburbia. And what scares me most about the film, is that I identify with Frank Wheeler (Leonardo di Caprio’s character): frustrated with his life, but too cowardly to change it, and thus accepting mediocrity. In the couple, even though I was the one who first brought up the idea of quitting my job and spending a year travelling in Africa, I’m the one who is also more concerned about monetary/financial considerations, more worried about finding new employment when we return, and I’m the one who is willing to postpone (I say for 1 or 2 years, but in reality, it could be indefinitely) our African trip if I get a new job that I’m currently applying for.

In the film, the estate agent Mrs Helen Givings (Kathy Bates’ character) says something to April Wheeler that echoes what a friend said of me once. To paraphrase, Mrs Givings said that the Wheelers seemed so special when she had first met them, and they had first moved into the neighbourhood… but of course, Mrs Givings hastens to add, they are still special now and still a bit different from the other people. One of my friends once said to me: you seemed so special and different when I first met you… not that I’m saying you’re not special anymore, but now you’re so much more normal, more like everyone else; I guess you’ve matured. It haunts me, the film’s echo of my own experience.

At the risk of sounding childish: I don’t think that being “much more normal” or being “more like everyone else” is a sign of maturity. I don’t necessarily think that what “everyone else” does is the right thing. It might be the right thing for some of them, but most of the time, doing what everyone else does is just being cowardly, or lazy. Like signing up, lock stock and smoking barrels, to a set religion without giving the way of the world and one’s personal quest for meaning a second thought.

I don’t see anything wrong with being contented, if that is within one’s nature. But neither do I see merit in being contented just for the sake of being contented. If fundamentally, one is discontented, or has not found one’s niche in the world, then I think it is wrong to drug oneself and live within a self-made prison of inertia.

One of the pyschometric test questions that I had was this: “Which is a more natural mistake for you to make in life: a) to drift from one thing to another too easily, or b) to stay in a rut for a longer time than you should”

I asked the Boy: so what do you think my answer was?

He said, “a) of course”. And he understood the irony perfectly – that in my desire to guard against my more natural mistake of being an ever-drifting duckweed, I over-compensate and hence I have a tendency to get stuck in ruts and stay in places that do not suit me for a longer time than I should.

I need to retrace my path to find a balance, and my strength.