lured and awed by Doremon and Instagram, new-age children may inadvertently be ignoring Indian ideals of inclusiveness. Parents must watch out
If I were a child, January 22 would have been one of the busiest days of my life this year. I would have celebrated Saraswati Puja with gaiety. I would have got ladoos at my school. At home, with my neighborhood friends, we would put an idol of Ma Saraswati, worship her and seek her blessings to continue our pursuit of knowledge. For my children, however, it was just another day of high dose of home work, Doremon, Sinchen and Instagram. Celebrating Saraswati Puja does not figure in the lexicon of India’s new children; neither does the sanctity of January 26, that we would gleefully observe as Republic Day, excite them. India has changed, and so does its cultural and social milieu.
India, in the 21st century is distinctly different from India in the earlier decades and it requires very little sociological understanding to comprehend this change. For us — the generation which grew up in the 1970s and 1980s — the Indian society and its values were still traditional. It was a society where the institution of family thrived on strong familial and kinship ties. Religion had a deep impact and a lot of premium was assigned to conventional wisdom. Socialisation had a typical pattern and it centered around institutions of family and
religion. For us, socialisation began with the family, moved to the schools and then colleges, and again back to the family. In the name of recreation, we played with our kins — joint family was still a norm — went to temples, watched circus and even went to haats and fairs.
Our parents were the abiding lights and dictated our terms of growing up. There were not many extraneous factors at play. We were not able to comprehend the distinction between mothers who were home-makers or career women. For us, mothers were just that, and about everything. Fathers had just one ‘occupation’ and gave us all the time in the world for us to savour. Cut to the present, and things look dramatically different. Among others, technology mediates modern milieu of growing up. Television has altered modern consciousness and malls and movies permeate the pattern of interaction and perceptions today. Modern children grow up with high dosage of impersonal and mediating factors, including television and WhatsApp.
External, and at times weird, images such as Spiderman, Sinchen and Doremon pervade modern consciousness. Internet, mobile phones, social media and other hi-tech gadgets have displaced the very intense community and social activities, such as local pooja (prayers) and even marriage ceremonies, which were once very compelling occasions for children to know each other and play among themselves. Modern ways of socialisation, for which we have to take the blame, leave us with worrying questions. One wonders about the kind of familial values that modern children, who grow up relating with Doremon and Pokemon, will inculcate. One wonders if they will relate as well with their cousins and neighbours as we did. One wonders if they would imbibe the same values as we did. One wonders if new children would be as social, as inclusive and as attached as we were. Will this all promote individualism, materialism and a culture of dispassionate detachmentIJ
It would be not out of context to quickly ponder over some of the major changes that the decades of the 1990s and 2000 have witnessed. Rapid urbanisation, globalisation and economic booms have meant much more opportunities for millions of aspiring men and women. Migration from rural to urban areas, which has been a sociological reality since ages, has become much more pronounced in recent times.
High premium on good education has further intensified this process of migration to urban areas. Migration has immediately reflected itself in weakening family ties and a rupture in institutions like joint family. Religious values too have lost their potency and no longer act as a cohesive force. In order to go up the social and economic ladder rapidly, modern parents put in enormous amount of time in their professional engagements. Parents in metropolitan cities and even small towns have begun to place high premium on high earnings in their bid to grab those extra bucks to be spent at malls and multiplexes. We are all gripped with a mindless passion to have more. Socialization of children has been a certain casualty because of this. Children are the best gifts that god has given us.
Seeing them lug on to that uncharted path — littered with technology, alien characters and unsubstantiated lure — is a dreadful idea. One sincerely hopes that in the final analysis, the olden values of compassion, affection, reverence and collectivism get rubbed with theirs, and they emerge as balanced modern individuals who are as much in love with their vocation and video games, as with their old bonds. One hopes, sooner than later, children learn to value the ideals that make Saraswati Puja or Republic Day so special. Parents must watch out.
(The writer is a strategic communications professional)