The fight of generations

It's a common scene in cars, buses, trains and trams nowadays to find a septuagenarian to be cursing the current generation for being the way that it is. Well, it's not just the current generations' dressing sense that has become an eyesore for the older generations but also their lifestyle, music, behaviour and their mere existence seems to be a curse of God. And I being an inhabitant of the modern world had to face it quite often and felt that there was need for this to be discussed. So as a spokesman of the innumerable maligned co-members of this generation, I fire up the debate here.

To start off, people were never born they way they are today. Their environments – that at home and outside home, that at school, college or office and that at society – influence them and mould them into the men and women that they are. So if a kid of 15 today utters a phrase that is sociably unacceptable, then we do not deem it necessary to find the roots of this behaviour in someone of the previous generation who had passed on this legacy and instead behave as if this rotten fruit has fallen from the sky. If a boy of 10 is found cheating at school then we do not even bother to think that maybe his behaviour is being influenced by what he sees his father doing at home and office, taking bribes and neglecting duties and whiffing off any mention of it by saying "Everybody does it". If a teenager of 16 is found smoking or drinking, then have the people who are cursing this generation stopped to think that he might be just emulating his father, brother, uncle or the friendly neighbour next door; a person of the previous generation. The blame game is on and the few perpetrators of all these heinous activities seem to become the sole representative of the modern generation.

I would say if today's generation lacks the basic courtesy and moral fibre, then it has been a failure of our previous generations in passing it down to us. We were not born with that learning that we are to give our seat to an old person or a lady while travelling by bus. We learn it from our previous generations who are well versed with the ways of life. So if we have failed in inculcating these civil norms then it is the whole round failure of our previous generations in guiding us the proper way. In fact I myself have been a victim of my good upbringing. Once travelling by bus in a journey of 4 hours, I saw an old man boarding the bus. The way that I have been brought up, I courteously got up and offered my seat to the man and stood hanging in front of him in the sweltering heat of the Indian summer. After about 30 minutes of the bumpy ride, the couple sitting to the right of the old man stood up to get down and I took position to squeeze myself into one of those seats. But to my utter dismay and that of the people around me, the old man had put his hanky on the seats and was busy calling his grandson and granddaughter to sit beside him. Well, after that day, I have been careful enough to offer my seat to only SINGLE old men – i.e. someone unaccompanied by such relations.

Well, returning to where I had left before visiting the nasty 'daddu', it is not always the fault of a kid that he is like that. A girl of 16 is chastised for wearing short skirts. But where did she get the idea of wearing it that way? If it's the media to be blamed then isn't it someone from the previous generations creating such content, and if it's the parents to be blamed, then isn't it two members of the previous generation again who were too self-centred enjoying adult content while forgetting to shelter the unadulterated mind of their little kid from such influence. If kids of today do not respect their elders then isn't it a reflection of the scheming mentalities of their parents that they behold every day scheming against their own parents, siblings, relatives, bosses, neighbours and everyone imaginable. The last aspect of so called modern insanity is music. Music of today has been founded on the fundamentals of yesterday. So if the music of A R Rehman, Anu Mallick and Vishal Shekhar duo seems jarring and unmelodious then one should stop to consider that their inspirations lie in music composers like R D Burman and S D Burman from the past.

So, it has been a natural progression of time and an evolution of the present generation from the combined efforts of the previous generations. What we are today is what the previous generations have made us. And I'm not proud of what we have become. Hence, the older generations should now stop blaming the current generations and trying to wash off their own responsibilities. It's high time that they accept their failure and constructively work with the present generation to repair the damage done till now. Let us each make an example of ourselves and lead by example instead of shrugging off responsibility and putting the blame on others.