THEY ASKED, WE LIVED

They asked with worry, with sarcasm, with fake concern.

They asked not to learn — but to protect their own fear.

They asked as if school guarantees wisdom,

as if cities are safe,

as if exhaustion is success,

as if obedience is love.

They threw questions like bricks,

but we built a home with them — slow, quiet, unshakable.

We did not answer with logic.

We answered by living.

And in our silence,

they heard everything.

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A. EDUCATION & CHILDREN – AS IF THEIR CHILDREN’S FUTURE IS GUARANTEED

1. “What about your children’s future if they’re homeschooled?”

As if their own school-going children already have a joyful, secure, purpose-filled future written in stone.

2. “Won’t they struggle to get into college?”

As if colleges are the only path to wisdom — and as if college graduates are living deeply fulfilled lives.

3. “But how will they get a job without certificates?”

As if every degree-holder today is respected, happy, financially stable, and working in the field they studied.

4. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll fall behind others?”

As if "others" are all thriving, well-rounded human beings living peaceful, self-directed lives.

5. “What about competition? They’ll be too soft!”

As if being crushed, anxious, and emotionally numb from an early age is a sign of healthy toughness.

6. “Will they be able to cope with the real world?”

As if the modern world, full of loneliness, pollution, rat races, and burnout, is something worth “coping with.”

7. “How will they learn discipline if there’s no school?”

As if discipline only arises from bells, punishments, and marks — and not from real-life responsibilities and love.

8. “How will they speak English?”

As if speaking English is the only definition of being intelligent, employable, or respectable.

9. “How will they socialise if they don’t go to school?”

As if bullying, peer pressure, and fake friendships in classrooms are ideal social environments.

10. “What if they blame you when they grow up?”

As if their children will never blame them for blindly following the herd without ever asking why.

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B. SAFETY – AS IF THEY LIVE IN THE SAFEST PLACE ON EARTH

11. “Is it really safe to live far from the city?”

As if their crowded city, full of traffic deaths, crime, and breakdowns, is a protected bubble of safety.

12. “What if snakes enter your house?”

As if snakes are more dangerous than processed food, toxic air, sexual predators, or psychiatric pills.

13. “What if someone attacks you in the forest?”

As if living in a gated society protects one from mental breakdowns, fraud, abuse, and loneliness.

14. “What will you do in an emergency if the hospital is far?”

As if people in cities aren't dying from over-medication, misdiagnosis, and hospital negligence daily.

15. “Aren’t your children at risk without vaccination?”

As if vaccinated, junk-fed, sedentary children with weak guts and screen addictions are immune to everything.

16. “Don’t you get scared in such a lonely place?”

As if the silence of nature is scarier than the inner emptiness they carry in their crowded apartments.

17. “Aren’t wild animals a threat?”

As if their lifestyle doesn’t expose them to wild banks, wild media, wild health policies, and wild impulses.

18. “How will you call for help if there's no network?”

As if being surrounded by mobile signal means someone will actually come when you break down crying.

19. “How do you protect your children without CCTV?”

As if raising disconnected children behind digital fences is true protection.

20. “You’re cut off from help — isn’t that dangerous?”

As if their over-connected lives offer any real human support when crisis hits.

—

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C. MONEY & CAREER – AS IF THEY ARE FINANCIALLY STABLE, DEBT-FREE, AND SATISFIED

21. “How long will you survive like this without a stable income?”

As if their monthly salary isn’t swallowed whole by EMIs, rent, fees, bills, loans, and random distractions.

22. “What if your savings finish?”

As if their savings haven’t already been pledged to banks, private hospitals, coaching centers, and weddings.

23. “You don't have insurance or a backup plan?”

As if their life is insured against insecurity, illness, failure, or loss of purpose.

24. “How will your children earn in the future if they don’t follow a career path?”

As if their own children are free from anxiety, burnout, or job-hopping just to stay afloat.

25. “What will you do in old age without a pension?”

As if they will retire peacefully, instead of being lonely, diseased, or dependent on unhappy children.

26. “Can farming or simple living really feed a family these days?”

As if chasing a job that sucks life out of you for 40 years is a more reliable way to eat.

27. “Don’t you want to give your children a better lifestyle?”

As if better means branded clothes, junk food, tuition centres, and a life of comparison.

28. “Won’t they lack exposure to professional life?”

As if office cabins, power politics, and fake meetings are examples of meaningful work.

29. “Why would you reject a life with AC, car, mall, salary, and vacations?”

As if all of that ever made them feel truly alive.

30. “You had so much potential. Why throw it away?”

As if working 9–9 for someone else’s dream while killing your health, family, and self-respect is "using potential."

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D. SOCIAL IMAGE – AS IF THEIR LIVES ARE FULL OF ADMIRATION AND RESPECT

31. “Aren’t you worried about what people will say?”

As if people aren’t already gossiping, comparing, and secretly miserable in their own lives.

32. “Why do you want to look poor when you’re educated?”

As if simplicity is shameful and showing off your suffering in makeup and EMIs is honourable.

33. “You’re not sending your children to school? What will relatives say?”

As if those relatives will raise them or stand by them during depression, failure, or illness.

34. “Are you trying to prove you're better than others?”

As if living freely, peacefully, and joyfully is an act of superiority — not sanity.

35. “People will think you failed in life!”

As if success means stress, separation, spending, and sickness.

36. “Why don’t you buy a flat like everyone else?”

As if suffocating in 600 square feet with borrowed money is a sign of achievement.

37. “Why don’t you post your life on social media if it’s so good?”

As if validation comes from likes, and not from inner stillness and laughter at dusk.

38. “Don’t your children feel ashamed of your lifestyle?”

As if their children aren’t ashamed of cold dinners, angry parents, and a life without hugs.

39. “So you’re against modern life?”

As if choosing peace is rebellion — and chaos is the acceptable default.

40. “You’re not participating in society!”

As if society participates in your life beyond judgement, loans, and opinion.

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E. PARENTING – AS IF THEIR CHILDREN ARE THRIVING EMOTIONALLY AND MENTALLY

41. “Don’t you think your children will miss out on the real world?”

As if the real world is full of empathy, respect, and emotional nourishment.

42. “Are you preparing them to become villagers?”

As if that’s worse than being urban slaves with no time for joy, food, or family.

43. “How will your kids handle pressure?”

As if panic attacks, burnout, and antidepressants are proof of coping well.

44. “Won’t they grow up unfit for society?”

As if society is fit for love, rest, learning, or freedom.

45. “You’re overprotective!”

As if letting children drown in academic torture and peer cruelty is wise parenting.

46. “Children should face the world early.”

As if childhood is training for obedience, not a phase to bloom safely.

47. “You’re spoiling them by letting them play so much.”

As if play is sin — and constant study, screen, and pressure is a virtue.

48. “Why don’t they have tuition and coaching?”

As if they were born to fill someone else’s cut-off list.

49. “Are you preparing them for village life only?”

As if village life is shame — and urban misery is glory.

50. “Aren’t you being selfish by isolating your children?”

As if selling them to systems that profit from their stress is an act of love.

—

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F. HEALTH & MEDICINE – AS IF THEIR SYSTEM KEEPS PEOPLE TRULY WELL

51. “You don’t go for regular checkups?”

As if checkups without health awareness, natural immunity, or food wisdom are worth anything.

52. “What do you do without a family doctor?”

As if family doctors today know your body better than your lifestyle does.

53. “You treat illnesses at home?”

As if rushing to a hospital for every fever, pimple, or cold is a sign of being modern.

54. “Aren’t you scared to avoid vaccines?”

As if vaccinated, sugar-fed, screen-addicted children are the healthiest humans alive.

55. “Do you think herbs are better than science?”

As if modern science isn’t profiting from diseases it cannot cure, only manage.

56. “What will you do in an emergency?”

As if lifestyle diseases, autoimmune collapse, and silent mental breakdowns aren’t daily emergencies.

57. “What about your calcium, B12, D3 levels?”

As if test results define vitality — not sunshine, sleep, digestion, and joy.

58. “You don’t use Dettol or sanitizer?”

As if sterilized hands and sanitized surfaces protect anyone from poisoned minds and overworked organs.

59. “You eat food from your own garden?”

As if supermarket packets, frozen plastics, and restaurant grease are somehow more nourishing.

60. “You don’t take antibiotics?”

As if antibiotics haven't wiped out guts, immunity, and common sense across three generations.

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G. TECHNOLOGY – AS IF THEIR DIGITAL LIFESTYLE IS BALANCED, HEALTHY, AND ENLIGHTENED

61. “How do your children learn without the internet?”

As if memorizing YouTube facts equals understanding, experience, or wisdom.

62. “Aren’t they missing out on digital literacy?”

As if screen addiction, fractured attention, and dopamine crashes are worth celebrating as “literacy.”

63. “No TV? No cartoons? No Netflix?”

As if artificial laughter and pre-chewed storytelling are better than catching frogs or inventing games under trees.

64. “How do they manage without mobile phones?”

As if hyper-availability, constant scrolling, and anxiety are signs of connection.

65. “Aren’t they digitally backward?”

As if forgetting how to sit, listen, imagine, or wonder is progress.

66. “You don’t let them play video games?”

As if weapon simulations and addictive reward loops are innocent fun.

67. “No Instagram account?”

As if public image matters more than private peace.

68. “Don’t you miss the convenience of food delivery, shopping apps, banking apps?”

As if convenience is more sacred than consciousness.

69. “How will your children survive in the digital economy?”

As if survival should depend on pixels and algorithms instead of soil, skills, and sanity.

70. “Aren’t you raising them to be outdated?”

As if people who can cook, grow, build, mend, and feel are outdated — and those addicted to dopamine loops are modern.

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H. JUDGEMENTS DISGUISED AS ADVICE – AS IF THEIR LIVES ARE CALM, FREE, AND WHOLE

71. “We’re only saying this for your good.”

As if parroting fears is help — and their own children are glowing examples of balance.

72. “You’ll come back to normal life one day.”

As if their idea of “normal” — stress, pollution, and hospital dependency — is something to aspire to.

73. “This lifestyle is good for now, but not long-term.”

As if theirs is long-lasting — full of synthetic drugs, destroyed soil, and spiritual bankruptcy.

74. “You’re being too extreme.”

As if slow food, clean air, and homemade love are more extreme than swallowing 5 pills a day and calling it modern life.

75. “Your children will suffer because of your decisions.”

As if spoon-feeding apps, over-scheduling, and outsourcing parenting doesn't already cause deep, silent suffering.

76. “You’ve become too idealistic.”

As if idealism is more dangerous than passively surrendering to a broken system.

77. “Don’t blame the system — learn to adjust.”

As if adjusting to damage, numbness, and burnout is wisdom.

78. “You’re isolating yourself from reality.”

As if chasing EMIs, performance, and plastic dreams is reality.

79. “You won’t survive in the real world with these values.”

As if the real world isn’t crumbling under the weight of these exact values being mocked.

80. “You’re just going through a phase.”

As if living honestly, slowly, and joyfully is a mood swing — not maturity.

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I. INDIRECT MOCKERY DISGUISED AS “JUST ASKING”

81. “So… no makeup, no parties, no outings?”

As if joy must come in packets, parlors, and public places.

82. “Do you even celebrate birthdays?”

As if celebration is cake and selfies — not hugs and time spent under trees.

83. “What’s the point of education if you end up like this?”

As if education isn’t supposed to lead to freedom — but to corporate cages.

84. “Why would educated people choose to live like this?”

As if wisdom is proved by how expensive your suffering is.

85. “Your life sounds boring!”

As if noise, speed, and mental overload are the definitions of an exciting life.

86. “But what about ambition?”

As if growing your own food, loving your family deeply, and waking up without alarm is not ambitious.

87. “You really think you can live without the system?”

As if the system hasn’t already abandoned most people — emotionally, medically, financially.

88. “Let’s see how long this lasts.”

As if their own life isn’t a countdown of compromises they’ve made but can’t admit to.

89. “Your children will want normal things someday.”

As if screen slavery, fake smiles, mall weekends, and junk habits are “normal.”

90. “You think you’re better than us?”

As if refusing to compete means claiming superiority — and not finally finding peace.

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J. EMPTY ADMIRATION THAT HIDES CONDESCENSION

91. “We admire you, but it’s not for us.”

As if freedom, slowness, and joy were exotic luxuries — not birthrights.

92. “You’re very brave to do this.”

As if living naturally is bravery — and surviving destruction is wisdom.

93. “I wish I could live like this, but I can’t.”

As if their chains are locked by others, not chosen daily.

94. “You must have some secret income!”

As if peace can’t be earned by simplicity and skill — only by hoarding and hustling.

95. “It’s working for you now, but children need structure later.”

As if trauma is structure — and burnout is discipline.

96. “You’re lucky to have this choice.”

As if they didn’t trade their own freedom for convenience and applause.

97. “We’re too old for this change now.”

As if age matters more than honesty.

98. “What if everyone started living like you?”

As if the earth wouldn’t heal — and so would the people.

99. “You’ll understand when your children grow up.”

As if parenting from love, not fear, is something to regret.

100. “But you can’t change the world.”

As if changing yourself, your children, and your land — isn’t already the biggest revolution possible.

—

They’re still asking — from balconies, offices, WhatsApp groups.

Still measuring life by marks, medals, and monthly income.

Still convinced that fear is safety, and noise is progress.

But we no longer explain.

We no longer defend.

We have food that doesn’t need labels,

children that don’t need coaching,

and peace that doesn’t need weekends.

Their questions echo in concrete.

Our answers bloom in soil.

And that is enough.