The Parental Paradox

  There's Us, and then there's Them.

It's called 'generation gap', apparently-- seems less like a mere gap and more like a gaping chasm each day. The adults and adolescents of this world share genes, homes and lives, yet belong to different universes. At ginormous functions (that ought to be banned, in my opinion), the  elders are in their element; remembering everybody's (and their father's uncle's sister-in-law's friend's neighbour's dog's) names and knowing just what to say and do and when. And us? We try to hide behind the curtains and pretend to be pillars, scared to death of the unknown faces and the obscure rules of social etiquette that our parents handle so well. When it comes to anything electronic, though, the tables are turned: we seem to be born with perfect knowledge of all that bewilders them. All that has been discussed to death; let's leave it at that. What makes me ponder is their ceaseless talk of 'those days' and 'how lucky you kids are'--are we all that lucky?

So much as whisper about 'new dress' or 'that iPod I wanted', and you'll be treated to a diatribe on the evergreen topic: 'How You Kids Have a Million Things We Didn't and Still Act Like Ungrateful Brats', peppered with anecdotes of 'Two suits of clothes for a whole year' and 'Begging the elders for a week before getting a pencil'. By the sound of it, all our parents lived during the Great Depression. Or the Stone Age, if our demands happen to be a tad on the expensive side. But catch them in a good mood, and the very same people who lament about their bland and austere past wax lyrical about how wonderful it was. I call it 'The Parental Paradox'. Let me expound:

Parents, uncles and aunts seem to have an endless stock of  childhood tales that sound suspiciously like excerpts from Malgudi Days; endless green fields, playing in the rain, joint families, football in the mud, ice lollies from the ice-cream man....life, it seems, was perfect then. It always starts with a sage "Ah, you kids have missed so much! When I was of your age...". These stories entertain me endlessly, mostly because they are as exotic as fairy-tales. It took me years to figure out the single thing that made their childhood so much fun: A sense of wonder. That's it--the very thing that pervaded their childhood and abandoned ours. And the reason for this is the very factor that they cite as a disadvantage: a total lack of luxury.

Take a common example: they had no television, no telephones (let alone cellphones), no plethora of gadgets whose sole purpose was to amuse-- a transistor, at best, was their sole source of entertainment. The result: Outdoor games, improved health, enhanced attention spans, better skills of personal interaction and most importantly: a love for reading and gaining knowledge. Even things we now see as trivial--like the sight of a car or a moving toy--were fascinating 'events'. We can only imagine a life so vibrant, but why? If  sources of wonder are a parameter for a good childhood, then surely we, with our technological marvels, are far better off than them? Nope--our minds have become frozen and unresponsive. Amid the blaring noises, garish images and artificially enhanced surroundings that assail us each moment, nothing short of an apocalypse will catch our attention. A teen who is put off by the sub-standard quality of 3D technology employed in a movie can hardly be expected to gaze in wonder at the vivid hues of a butterfly.

At the end of it all, we are left living mere shells of lives, under the sad impression that we have everything, when we don't even have the simple pleasure of watching the stars in the sky, or smelling a breeze that is scented by flowers and not burnt rubber. Lucky us? I beg to differ.

What do we do then? Call me pessimistic, but my answer is: nothing. Our minds are already inextricably trapped in an unreal world. But there is one last thing we could do: listen to the tales of our elders. And wonder.

"To see a world in a grain of sand,

 And a heaven in a wild flower;

 Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

 And eternity in an hour."

-William Blake