I
am lucky to be part of the generation (probably the last one?) who played
marbles with utmost seriousness and had a professionalism in controlling the
Spinning Top… A generation which never saw danger in Tree-Monkey Game and was
fearless in jumping from one tree to other… Generation with high level of skills
in playing Tipcat. My memories are filled with countless outdoor games we
played without a hint of technology and sophisticated equipment. We never felt
need of sophistication. My school days were the ones where people were not
dependent on technology. It was just entering Indian towns. TV was still new to
the room and was an amusement to us.
Social
media is something which increases the count of friends but actually makes
people lonelier within. We pretend to be social on online social media to cover
up the actual social life we are running away from. With the life style we have,
we don’t have time to be social. We still have social network which helps us to
grow our business or career. We very easily leave friends behind along with
the college we passed out and the company we left; because it is just need
based setup. We are lazy to meet and connect to friends who are few steps away...
but they like photo of our new recipe on Facebook… we would have actually
called them for lunch… we are busy! We forget to connect to a friend sitting
next to us because we were busy connecting to somebody else on Whats-app! Our
family system is getting fickle and shallow day by day… Trust between people is
deteriorating slowly… We have very few people to share our happiness and
sorrows… Our social pride mask stops us from being emotionally natural. We are
heading towards competition based selfish social system where everybody is wearing
mask of status… Is everybody happy with it? We should think of investing time
on people we like… who will exist without existence of social media and any
other fingertip communications we have and don’t expect anything other than
mental peace and joy from those people.
Our
previous generation had a commitment and had a discipline in life. They had
better moral commitment towards their work and life. I have seen people who
rejected the offers of being more powerful, rejected opportunity to make more
money; just because they have to compromise with their ethics. They never made
money; I would say they were successful. They lived with pride and never had a
sense of guilt in their life. They had guts to do it and most of us don’t have!
We call it an irrational decision!
Most
of our parents were struggling to make money to come out of poverty. As I have
seen the village, there was no rush to make money even though they never had
enough (very relative word in case of money!). Probably the same reason would
have pushed them to have more wealth in terms of social relationships which
could save them in case of emergencies. They never craved for success… They
always believed, it is absolutely wrong to step on somebody else to achieve
success. They found themselves happy with the harmony they had with people
around them. They worked hard for the food and relished when the stomach was
full. Whenever I speak to an elderly person from my village, I can feel the
sense of fulfillment in his/her life. Their world was small and most of them were
happy in that. What was wrong?
God
knows who started the concept of “You are born to make money … One and only aim
of your birth is to make money and buy things!” We all hooked on to it! We forget
what Indian spirituality said about “Why you are born?” We make money initially
for luxury (we say quality of living!) after that we make money just for the
habit of making money. We don’t even have time to cook and eat because we are
busy making money! New generation is building up an attitude of “Anything which
is not profitable is useless”. As a
general public we don’t read poetry. Most of us will ask “What is the use of
poetry?” We are not saints to be happy with whatever we have. We need to dream
big and work hard to achieve them. But, there are lot of other creative things
to dream about, which doesn't involve money.
We
pass on all our attitudes about life to next generations. They don’t feel they
are part of nature… They treat nature as a Tool... They struggle to understand
‘Nature is life’. Being connected to nature will not be something natural for
next generations. An extra attempt will be required to introduce them to
nature. They might like playing on iPad sitting at jungle resort! We can’t pass
on our tradition to next generation because we don’t even have rough
understanding of what it is! We are the generation more materialistic than our
previous one was… next generations will have the danger of just being
materialistic.
Now
the kids are taught to win… How to become smart and successful. Very rarely they
are taught – “It is OK to loose but hold on to morals/ethics”. It is not just
about teaching or preaching, they don’t see value in value system, society
gives them the impression – “Hook or Crook winner enjoys!” They will break
double the rules we break! Is there a way to make the next generations
understand? Morality is not finite… There are no set rules for what is right
and what is wrong … Something which is absolutely morally wrong today, becomes
morally acceptable as time passes. We need careful eyes to notice the change in
morality and thoughtful mind to decide what is right and what is wrong!
With
the globalization and cosmopolitan society, we have its own advantages. We can
contact anybody anywhere in the world in matter of seconds. We came out of the
class and caste based mentality of our previous generation. We became more open
to changes and have temperament of surviving anywhere on this planet. We travel
more and gain different experiences, which makes us better people.
I
am lucky to be part of the generation which respects gender equality… which
doesn’t respect the division based on class, caste and religion… A generation
which saw post cards to Whats-app … A generation which was part of flying kites
as well as airplane... A generation who wrote on writing-slate as well as on
new gen tablets… A generation who enjoyed reading both Mahabharath and Harry
Potter. A generation who has equal skills handling Tipcat as well as Play
Station Controller.
The
village, town and the city I spent all these years offered me a new change
every other day… which I always enjoyed. Change was required to fight against
more serious social evils practiced by our previous generations… That doesn’t
mean ‘change’ should degrade something good we already had. I would have
glorified the negative part of where we are heading to… These are all random
thoughts came to my mind… These are just the questions raised… None of us have
definite answers to all these questions… For some of us these are irrelevant
and not the questions at all… Everybody’s view point is different! I am not saying all that modern is bad. Just
that, we have a challenge of balancing Money on one side… Happiness, Peace, Fulfillment,
Love, Morality etc. on the other side.
Wish
you and your loved once a Very Happy New Year filled with Love… Joy… Peace…
Fulfillment…
Cheer!
Kiran
