During my daily evening walk in Patna I stop at a roadside tea shop near a roundabout to have tea. The area has four cigarette shops and a lot of youth come daily for their evening outing. There is a lot of talk about India being a young nation with more than 50 per cent of its population below the age of 25 years and more than 65 per cent below 35 years. I get some idea about the young of India in the 15 minutes I halt at the roundabout to have tea.
Most of the young men who visit the area in the evening are in school in plus two or in college. The information I have about the youth coming there is from the conversation they have among themselves. I never consciously overhear but they talk about their activities boisterously and it is impossible not to overhear them. They, of course, are totally unconcerned about who gets to hear what about them. They live in a world of their own.
What do these school and college going middle class youth of India talk aboutIJ They have four pet themes. Studies just do not figure in their talk, though many in the school going lot are preparing for the tough engineering and medical entrance exams. Their guardians have enrolled them in expensive coaching institutes and in the evening they are supposed to be at these institutes preparing after school for the competitive exams. Most of them come on bikes or in big cars. These vehicles are given to them by their parents. The primary things that preoccupy them are girls, drugs, racing on roads and violent fights involving students.
At times their talk about these things alarms me and takes me to my own youth. That reassures me a bit. When I was their age, a lot of my classmates in school were hooked to these things. But after their experimentation and experiences with them, all of my school mates have done well in life. I wish and hope that the youth of today dallying with sex, drugs, speed and violence also emerge from their escapades mature and in control of themselves.
It may be difficult to find maturity in a 17-year-old but it is easy to find a mature 70-year-old. The maturity of the 70-year-old comes from the myriad experiences that happen till the age of 70 is reached. Before a person reaches equipoise vis-à-vis sex, drugs, speed, violence and a lot of other things that can derail him, he needs ample exposure to them to determine exactly what they are. Talking in terms of the Hindu ethos of maya, a person needs to engage with the world and all that it offers to discover that it is maya, an illusion. Before finding out that what looked like a snake was actually a rope, one needs to handle the snake and see clearly what it is.
I am reminded of Akbar Ilahabadi's lines in a ghazal sung by Ghulam Ali. The lines are: "Na-tajurbakari se, waiz kii ye baatein hain / Is rang ko kya jaane, poochho to kabhi pii hai" (The preacher says what he does because he has no experience. Can he know this colourIJ Ask him if he has ever drunk.)
Some are blessed with maturity regarding certain things at an early age. Many of my friends never had the urge to smoke or drink and so the matter of smoking and drinking never arose for them. But if a person is drawn to something, it is better to experience it and then evolve to the stage where he can renounce or drop it. If he tries to suppress his desire, it will only grow stronger and finally overpower him.
There is a saying in Hindi that "jitna anubhav mein aya utna hi sach hai". It broadly means that the truth a person can know is limited to the things he has experienced. The need to experience a thing to understand is brought out in a story from the life of the 8th century saint Adi Shankar. He had defeated many scholars in shastrarth or debate on religious matters. Once he got into a debate with a scholar named Mandan Mishra in which Mishra's wife Bharti was the judge.
Bharti declared Shankar the winner of the debate but said that since in the Hindu tradition a woman is one half of her husband, Shankar would have to defeat her to really defeat Mishra. In her debate with Shankar, Bharti asked him questions related to sex. Shankar said he was incapable of answering these questions as he was a celibate and had no experience of sex.
Bharti gave Shankar some time to prepare himself to answer her questions. Shankar then through his powers entered the body of a king who had just died. He had sex with the queen to experience it. He then left the body of the king and entered his own body. In the debate that followed with Bharti, Shankar emerged the victor and Mandan Mishra became his disciple.
The youth of today, as the youth of every other age, are discovering the reality of life in all its shades by experiencing all that life has to offer. And the youth I see at the cigarette shops are not representative of all the youth of the country. They are just one section of the young population of India. As with every generation there are all kinds of youth in today's young generation too.
Some are good in studies, some good at both studies and extra-curricular activities, some good at only extra-curricular pursuits. Some are focused on positive activities and some have a lot of distractions. Youthful energy comes in all shades of the spectrum and every shade has its own validity.
Overall, I find the youth of today a very talented, sensible and practical lot. I wish them well in the journey of life. I pray they have a much better life than the generations that came before them.
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