The pace of progress has been rampant over the past few years in the “not-so-big” cities of India. With the way development crept into the smaller cities, the price has been paid by the soul of the city. Every step closer to the development has been at the cost of our environment, culture, peace, and most important of all, humanity.
I came across several youngsters who have created a world of their own, outside their families. Parents don’t even seem to know where their kids are. Freedom, space, independence, call it what you may, I believe it is the modernization, or should I say Americanization of Indians. Rate with which old age homes have sprung up in country may be good news for some youngsters, but I would call it alarming. Probably there were parents who packed their love and affection and handed it over their kids on their birthdays. But what about those parents who spent and even sacrificed their happiness, and some even their careers to give a better future to their children. I have come across so many of them who have restricted themselves to the same field, same location, same position, just so that it may not hamper their kids future.
This is the time where I am forced to think what is it that guides or motivates the parents to work so hard for their kids? Everyday we hear cases where the parents are turned out from their homes to old age homes, sometimes even killed by their own people for property. So many times the kid turns out to be a shame for the parents. In spite of knowing all that, what makes the parents so selflessly dedicated to the child. For the mother to take so much pain to bring the kid into this world, for the father to take an extra shift so that he can send the child to a better school, for the mother to keep up the entire night while the child sleeps suffering through fever. There is so much done by them during the age when a child can’t even realize what their parents have done for them. I swear I have not seen any mother or father maintaining an excel file to let their kids know what all they have done for them, and I am not talking about just monetary acts.
We work so hard for our qualifications, for our jobs, and one fine day, we leave for an outstation job, leaving our parents back at home. Is it enough to hand over our salary to them? Money is really everything, isn't it? That is how we would evaluate our parents, would we? Our parents never really threw us out of our house simply because we failed in the exam or had bad handwriting. They accepted us as we were, no adjustments, they were happy to have us as we were, did everything to make us a better person. One of my neighbours had three sons, two of them in US and one in Canada, none is able to adjust with their parents at their home. Hence their father still lives alone in Lucknow so that their children can live happily, ever after. It so seems that all the love and affection we have for our parents is wrapped up and handed over to our mother on a Mother’s day or to our father on Father’s Day, and consider our liabilities fulfilled. They spent on us, so we spent on them, deal is square.
I wouldn’t stretch it too far but just like to end it with a note. I was very young, can’t be very specific about the age but I can say it is something which I clearly remember. My father used to drive a Bajaj Ltd. 150. I used to stand in front of the driver’s seat while he drove. Whenever there was a lot of dust on the road, he would ask me to close my eyes until he said to open them back. I used to follow orders. Once I just thought, “What if I didn’t close my eyes?”. So once on our way to some place, my father asked me to close my eyes. I closed my eyes, but to peek, I just opened one of my eyes, and I saw my father had his palm over my eyes, and was driving with one hand. After some time he removed his hand and said, “Now you can open your eyes”.
Do I really need a “Father’s Day” to love him or say thanks to him?
4 comments:
Nice article with an emotional touch. I definitely agree with what you have written.
Now just for a moment think yourself as a parent and why would you do things you mentioned your parent did for you, you would do same or even more for your child- the answer probably is - for your own happiness and satisfaction. As a parent you would never expect anything in return from a child, that is why you would never maintain a log of whatever you have done for him/her. You will teach the child to become independent and take his/her own decision. And when the same child takes a decision to leave you, should you feel bad about it?
I don't know how will I feel about it, but yes if my child chooses to leave me, I should not make him look like a selfish person. After all whatever I did for him/her was because of my self-interest.
And moreover, its the "horn-effect" which somehow remains quite dominant in taking decisions (true for most of us) Few bad experiences with some person make us literally forget what ever good the person had done for us. Again its strange. Why do humans behave this way, its beyond me.
Food for thought- for another blog maybe
A nice post that one, very high on literary measure, but probably written with heart on sleeve. Every step towards development has been at the cost of environment, culture, peace & humanity. Thats what you feel. But what is development? Is it more industries? Or is it more employment? Or is it better infrastructure? Or is it more TV channels available to scan and better cars to drive? Or is it more money circulating and higher per capita income. How do you define development? Try defining the words progress and development and you will start getting closer to answers to your questions. You said that environment is the price that has been paid for development. Development or no development, a large chunk of population surviving with contaminated drinking water supplies and polluted air to breathe with absolutely no regulatory bodies or laws to effectively stop it. What humanity are you talking of? Get out of your cocoon, and head west. You will sadly realise that with or without this development, there's no value of a human being in this country. There are no safety laws to prevent the crowd from hanging on the door of a Mumbai local and getting crushed, because it requires better infrastructure. Theres no respect for a human being or a human life here. In India its a 'power' and 'money' game. Those who do not possess these two weapons are doomed. Coming to the definition of the words progress and development. I leave it to you to define it using complicated jargons and phrases. To me it means "Complete Americanisation" and nothing more. Please do not feel guilty in accepting that. Because that is what we are all heading towards. And let me tell you that despite being the most developed country, America has retained its culture; theres a lot of respect for human beings, life is valued. Drinking water is available in all taps(including bathrooms) 24X7 and no body dare pollute the atmosphere. Hygiene and sanitation are examplary. So please do not make sweeping statements that environment, culture, and humanity are the ultimate sacrifices that small cities have made or need to make to step closer to development.(To be continued...)
I do agree with mam that development is all that he has mentioned in his comment. And that brings me to add to my post that neither are we developing nor are on our way to save humanity. That is a double loss. Furthermore, it is agreed that human beings are valued in America, but human relations are getting affected...
2. Coming to the second part of the matter. I do agree that we have lost on humanity if humanity to you means human relations alone and nothing more. But it cannot be blamed on 'rampant progress' and the creeping 'development' alone. Try and analyse the pattern of change in survival measures. First it was hunting in herds. Post invention of wheel, it was farming. Huge pieces of land were tilled and reared to produce agro products, which were sold to make good a living. As generations passed, the huge pieces of lands kept getting sub-divided to ultimately leave farms that were inadequate to provide means of living to later generations as the quantity of produce kept decreasing. The last generation of farmers had to finally sell the land and migrate to these "not-so-big" cities to manage the survival of their future generations. These cities absorbed the migrants and allowed them to flourish in this time tested democracy. But when it came to the openings to the future generations, the options of a collective trade that could absorb the entire clan, or the family were limited. More and more people chose to go for white collared jobs, where-in the offsprings had a tough time holding on to the roots and managing to survive at the same time. So the roots had to be left. This was nothing new, because it is just history repeating itself. Forefathers left their roots for survival, and the current lot is doing the same. Choices are few. Its a price that needs to be paid for survival. Unfortunately, parents these days measure their success by the jobs that their sons or daughters pick up, and the one whose son gets a job in USA or UK considers himself the most successful, little do they realise that separation comes as a part of the package deal. By the time it hits them it is too late to retract.
3. I know Old Age Homes are treated with such disdain in most parts of India. But I do believe that given the right facilities and efficient management, these Homes will be preferred by a large number of old men and women who are spending their lives in misery within the respectable cover of a joint family, at the mercy of their sons and daughters in law, wherein each day is spent hoping that it is their last. The seclusion and neglect that they suffer, the deprivation they have to face, and the taunts that they are subjected to whilst lying in a less frequented room of the house, would put humanity to shame. And mind it, I have been a witness to all this in the days of the License Raj, when all this rampant progress and development were no where in sight.
4. What is it that guides or motivates the parents to work so hard for their kids? Its sheer love and selflessness which can't be expressed here.Become a parent and you will know it.
5. Yes I do agree that you do not need a Fathers and Mothers Day to remember your parents. But we shouldnt forget that these occasions are irrelevant in the Indian social structure, and it will remain so for at least next 100 years. People behind these celebrations are Greeting Card manufacturing companies and associated business owners, who would, if they had their way, would convert all 365 days into some occasion or the other. It is only because you and me find it too unacceptable in our society to have a fathers or a mothers day that you have been compelled to ask that whether you really need a fathers day to love him or say thanks to him.
6. Long back, I read an interview with Shah Rukh Khan, in which he was asked to comment on the fact that he loves his son, then one year of age, madly. He replied "My son is too young to know who his father is, how rich he is, or what stature does he hold in the society, but still he loves me, and I love him without any thing in return. Perhaps thats how it is." These feelings and human relations are the instruments with which God turns and moves this earth, and all earthly beings. Few things, though appear simple and abstract, are too large for us to comprehend.
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