Staying in Mumbai all throughout, I have engaged and explored what student life in school, junior and degree college and work life is, I have also witnessed what various family lives are and what work life is. Each cluster of people provides one with various newer possibilities of leading and experiencing the itineraries of the same category of lives in varied different ways. Each of it is layered and has a strong network of engagements. I would here, like to categorize them in some broad categories of growing kids, teenagers and grade-schoolers, university students, young couples, families and working individuals.
My travel to Boston, Seattle and New York allowed me to engage with student life as a grade-schooler, university student lives, a family life, and with that of working individuals. Being a University area - Boston, Cambridge in Massachusetts to be precise allowed me to engage with some students studying in MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). A small town which also houses the Harvard University provides the comfort of being within all institution and academic buildings. As one moved through this place, one would pass by numerous students and young scholars and faculty members. With the majority of the students staying here in hostels, and on-campus they lead very independent lives. I am sure this might be a case even here; however, I engaged with the hostel and independent student life more closely there.
Another such engagement was with a young couple who had just settled in with their individual jobs and starting a family in there. The struggle of earning a living, renting a house and running a family together. I also learnt about the various benefits which the university provides its employees and students. From mess for food to medical checkups. With a clear line drawn between the working hours and the time for oneself. I am not very sure how I would analyze this for now. For some, that is what works, and for some, they would want it otherwise.
In Seattle, I got to witness what is it to be in a family together. With working parents and the possible balance between work and family life. I must say I was very intrigued to know some of the policies which the workplaces there engaged with - One day work from home, kids day out at the office, provision for an alternate work environment, etc. It emerged to be a well-balanced life.
In New York, I saw two contradictory settings of working individuals. One setting which allowed for the freedom of delivering things within the work hours and drawing clear time during lunch breaks and beyond work hours. A free-spirited life. And the second work which was more closer to what I always engaged in here with were additional work hours. The fact that one could go to a park nearby and have a nap for one hour during lunch was very intriguing. Needless to say, the factor of safety and possibility which the place and the neighbourhood provided.
However, as I look back on these instances which made a mark on me starkly at that time, it forces me to think that it to a larger extent it is more of what an individual themselves are and seek and hence the opportunities which open up to them.