DISILLUSIONMENT: THE LONGEST PILGRIMAGE HOME

Seeing the World as It Is

Disillusionment is the slow, painful process of seeing through the false promises that shape our lives — from school, career, marriage, religion, family, and even the self. In the Indian context, it means waking up from the script of duty, marks, status, rituals, and silent obedience, only to realise how deeply we participated in those illusions. But beyond this collapse lies not despair, but clarity: a quieter, simpler, more truthful life where success is redefined, freedom is internal, and peace comes not from achieving more, but from shedding what was never real to begin with.

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I. YOU WERE HANDED A SCRIPT

In India, most children are not born into blank slates.

They are born into scripts.

You are told who you are:

Your caste, your future career, your gods, your moral duties, your seat at the table.

You are told what brings honour:

Marks, a secure job, a proper marriage, a child by thirty, and a house with nameplate.

And what brings shame:

Failure. Questioning. Living differently.

You follow the script because everyone is clapping while you act it out.

Grandparents smile when you mimic English.

Teachers reward obedience, not imagination.

Neighbours measure your worth by salary and scooter model.

No one warns you:

This script is not real life.

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II. SCHOOL – THE FIRST FACTORY

They said school would set your mind free.

But by Class 4, you learn:

The topper is God.

The artist is “timepass.”

The slow child is “weak.”

The quiet one is “not participating.”

A child asks, “Why do I need this algebra?” and is told, “Because you have to.”

No one explains. No one listens.

You just memorise, recite, repeat.

The illusion: Education empowers.

The reality: It standardises. It filters. It grooms you to fit the machine.

COUNTER-EXAMPLE:

Kavita, 13, village near Hampi.

She never went to formal school. Her parents, basket-weavers, taught her math through business.

She reads Ramayana under the tree with her grandfather, and learns English from visiting tourists.

She doesn’t dream of becoming a “topper.”

She already feels intelligent.

She will never know the illusion of school-based self-worth — and so, will never suffer its betrayal.

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III. COLLEGE & CAREER – THE BEAUTIFUL TRAP

You chase degrees.

Your worth is compressed into numbers:

Percentage, rank, CTC, job title, LinkedIn headline.

You believe the job is the solution to all problems — money, purpose, freedom.

Until you get it.

Now you sit in air-conditioned boxes, building reports for someone else's dream.

You fake cheerfulness.

You laugh at boss’s jokes.

You swallow your voice and call it maturity.

You don’t know when Sunday became Monday.

You just know you’re tired.

The illusion: Job = Success + Dignity.

The reality: Often, it’s silent resignation.

COUNTER-EXAMPLE:

Rahul, 21, Sonipat.

His father refused to send him to engineering college.

Instead, they started a native seed bank together.

He never chased an MNC job, never sat in a cubicle, never believed CTC defines character.

He grows food, saves seeds, teaches locals.

He sleeps well.

He doesn’t envy your resume.

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IV. MARRIAGE – THE SANCTIFIED COMPROMISE

Marriage is worshipped in India.

Your relatives spend lakhs on rituals.

Elders declare “marriage is half of dharma.”

Everyone celebrates — until the honeymoon ends.

Then comes performance:

Joint family diplomacy.

Silent adjustments.

Fights no one talks about.

Loneliness under one roof.

Many couples live parallel lives — appearing happy, dying slowly.

The illusion: Marriage brings fulfillment.

The reality: Often, it brings lifelong negotiation.

COUNTER-EXAMPLE:

Saira, 38, Kutch.

Her father never told her to marry.

She lives alone by choice, works as a folk embroidery artist, and mentors village girls.

She is not against marriage.

She just never worshipped it.

So she was never disillusioned by it.

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V. RELIGION – THE FEAR DISGUISED AS FAITH

You bow because you're taught to.

You chant without understanding.

You fear hell and crave blessings.

Faith could’ve been a source of inquiry, connection, stillness.

But it became:

Transaction (donate to get divine favours)

Fear management (do this or suffer in next life)

Power (priests, patriarchy, control)

The illusion: Ritual equals truth.

The reality: Often, it’s obedience to what you don’t understand.

COUNTER-EXAMPLE:

Kannan, 69, Tamil Nadu.

Never entered temples. Never ridiculed believers.

He read Upanishads under a neem tree.

Meditates. Laughs. Lives simply.

He never lost his religion — because he never treated it like insurance.

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VI. GOVERNMENT & SYSTEMS – THE MASKED MONSTER

You are told: Vote. Respect police. Trust the state.

You want to believe.

Until your ration card application gets rejected without reason.

Until your neighbour is jailed for protesting a land grab.

Until you see an honest officer transferred every six months.

You realise: the Constitution is sacred.

But the execution is corrupted.

Justice is delayed. Power is inherited.

The system does not reward integrity. It punishes it.

The illusion: Democracy means dignity for all.

The reality: Only if you're rich, connected, or invisible.

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VII. FAMILY – THE DOMESTIC RELIGION

Family is everything — they say.

But you grow up noticing:

Jealousy between siblings.

Control masked as love.

Property fights.

Suppression of black sheep.

Unspoken trauma across generations.

We honour parents. But many never heal from them.

You can love your family — and still need distance.

You can respect elders — and still question their conditioning.

The illusion: Family always protects.

The reality: Often, it imprisons.

COUNTER-EXAMPLE:

Asha, 45, Bangalore.

Her parents treated her like an adult at 15.

Never said “Because I said so.”

They disagreed often, but loved clearly.

No one was silenced in that house.

No illusions were sold — so no illusions were shattered.

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VIII. THE SELF – THE LAST MIRAGE

After everything else breaks —

you finally look at yourself.

You who thought you were different.

You who mocked the herd.

You who thought you were awake.

You realise:

You too were arrogant.

You too hurt others while pretending to be right.

You too chased superiority by calling it “truth.”

The illusion: “I am the good one.”

The reality: You are just as human. Just as flawed. Just as confused.

This is the final collapse.

And the first real peace.

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IX. WHAT COMES AFTER SEEING CLEARLY

At first, disillusionment brings sorrow.

Then comes space.

Space to breathe without pretending.

To cook without rushing.

To plant a tree without performance.

To speak truthfully — or not at all.

You may lose people.

You may be called cold.

You may feel alone.

But eventually,

you become simple, not cynical.

You become kind, not naïve.

You begin to live, not perform.

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X. A LIFE WITHOUT ILLUSIONS IS NOT BLEAK

Some never enter illusions.

They are rare. But they exist.

The child who is never told marks equal worth.

The farmer who never worshipped a salary slip.

The mother who never imposes her unfulfilled dreams.

The dropout who never chases applause.

The monk who never sold God.

These are not heroes. They are just lucky —

to have been left untouched by the shiny lies.

For the rest of us,

disillusionment is not a curse.

It is an honour.

It is the true adulthood.

You grow not by adding more —

but by losing what was never yours.

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XI. IN THE WISDOM OF AN OLD VILLAGER

A potter in rural Chhattisgarh once told his son:

“Don’t trust anything that needs you to stay afraid to work.”

That is disillusionment:

The refusal to bow to fear.

The choice to live awake, even when it costs comfort.

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THE PILGRIMAGE OF SEEING

they said you were born,

but really,

you were injected into a schedule.

a caste,

a god,

a syllabus,

a queue number at the government hospital,

a name you didn’t choose,

a flag you must salute.

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they dressed you up like a freedom fighter on 15th August,

gave you laddoos,

and whispered,

“beta, one day you’ll become collector.”

you were five.

your shoulders already heavy with other people’s dreams.

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you learn early:

questions are rude.

doubts are dangerous.

truth is to be spoken only after tea.

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you go to school.

not to think,

but to behave.

you say “Good Morning Ma’am”

even when you want to scream.

you write essays on “Honesty is the Best Policy”

and watch the invigilator help the rich boy cheat.

you are taught to love Gandhi.

but not to live like him.

because no one profits from simplicity anymore.

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you grow.

you are handed forms.

exam forms.

aadhar forms.

application forms.

life, reduced to checkboxes.

they say:

“Get a job. Be a man. Don’t embarrass the family.”

so you chase jobs,

tie nooses shaped like ties,

and beg HR for dignity.

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inside the cubicle,

you find pain with air-conditioning.

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somewhere between appraisal forms and Sunday anxiety,

you realise —

you were never working for a dream.

you were feeding a system that eats dreamers and spits out EMI payers.

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you marry.

big stage. big smiles.

mehendi. gifts. rituals you don't understand.

you thought it was love.

turns out, it was the fusion of two family WhatsApp groups.

you say “we need to talk”

but you don’t.

because everyone is tired.

and silence is cheaper than divorce.

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you go to temple.

ring bells.

fold hands.

donate to the gold plating fund.

but inside, you wonder:

why does God need CCTV?

and why does the priest stare at your wife’s jeans?

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you vote.

they promise.

you wait.

they disappear.

you ask for drinking water.

they give you a statue.

you ask for roads.

they give you speeches.

you are told: “This is democracy.”

you are not told: for whom.

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your parents say:

“Family is everything.”

but you watch them argue over land.

you watch your uncle slap his son for becoming a dancer.

you watch your cousin be disowned for loving someone from the wrong sub-caste.

you realise:

family often means:

“Do what we couldn’t. Or suffer.”

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then, one day — when it’s all breaking —

you look in the mirror.

you, the rebel.

you, the aware one.

you, the truth-seeker.

and you see:

a coward in disguise.

someone who judged others for their illusions

while secretly polishing his own.

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you realise you weren’t fooled by the world.

you signed the contract.

you played along.

you wore the mask so well it left scars.

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this is not depression.

this is disillusionment.

raw. hard.

but clean.

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and then…

you stop.

stop chasing.

stop pretending.

stop arguing on Twitter.

you make a cup of tea without recording it.

you walk barefoot without thinking of yoga.

you hug your child without fixing her.

you return to the soil.

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you meet people who never fell —

because they never climbed the ladder.

a weaver woman who taught her daughter how to read the sky,

not just the syllabus.

a fisherman who never worshipped salary slips.

a widow who lives alone in a mud hut,

and laughs louder than your entire office.

they don’t speak of disillusionment.

they just live without illusion.

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you begin to shed.

not clothes.

not weight.

not followers.

but falsehood.

you say “I don’t know”

and mean it.

you say “no”

and sleep well.

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you don’t become holy.

you don’t become wise.

you just become real.

and in this country of a billion performances,

that is the most radical thing.

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people ask:

what comes after disillusionment?

you tell them:

a small life. a real life. a free life.

without applause.

without awards.

without godmen or gurus or goals.

just you.

the sun.

a plate of hot rice.

and no need to prove anything to anyone.

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you walk slowly now.

not because you’re tired.

but because you’ve stopped running from yourself.

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that’s all.

that’s everything.

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