Are you kidding?
Going by my rants, anyone can safely presume that i hate children. I don’t. I love babies as long as they don’t belong to me. Also, i adore…
Going by my rants, anyone can safely presume that i hate children. I don’t. I love babies as long as they don’t belong to me. Also, i adore those tiny furless creatures for their sheer helplessness. They can’t communicate even if their death depended on it and can barely crawl with their life practically at the mercy of others’ attention. That’s the phase i am very fond of. Once the baby has grown considerably and has developed vocal chords to spurt out mean blurbs, that’s the point i start detesting them. Maybe it’s nostalgia but during my childhood, we were simpler. Even a black-n-white TV was greeted with so much amusement that we didn’t want to blink lest we missed something. Today’s younger ones are laden with so many electronic gadgets that they don’t appreciate the awesomeness of their era. On the contrary, they take stuff for granted and feel that they are entitled to the finest of technology. Back then, when my cousin moved the aerial antenna on our roof and my job was to scream out to him at the exact moment when broadcast showed up on the screen, we were on to something. The same was true for finding the channel on radio. We were part of the epicness unfolding in front of us; early ‘90s was a time to be alive and not-so-kicking. Can today’s counterparts get even close?
Fast-forward to 2017.
I often come across kids with minimum respect for others. Maybe this trend has something to with the parenting they get at home. Or maybe i’m a miserable fuck who needs to stop pointing fingers at them and shut up. Speaking of which, earlier, kids were advised against talking to strangers. Today, kids are advised against smiling back at strangers. It’s almost like we are fast becoming a country (urban) that’s too hot to be filled with cold people. Maybe the kids are taught to be ambitious to such an extent that they miss out on the basics of humanity. Given the way they talk to each other, even friends, one can notice the adult patterns in their conversation. The innocence is hard to find. It’s still alright but situations get worrisome when you see them turning aggressive. In my book, throwing a tantrum in the supermarket is not as big a deal as throwing a stone at street dogs. The former act is the parents’ headache whereas the latter shouldn’t be the dogs’ problem. The West has earned the right to be the role model for the world but somewhere in our societal Lego, we are screwing up big time by adapting a model blindly.
People my generation prefer to look back into the past and seek scapegoats among our oldies — for some reason, Gandhiji springs to mind although it’s unfair— whereas i choose to keep my scorn reserved for the future. My blatant stand against the ultimate goal called progeny works in tandem with my call to leave no child behind — literally. I think it’s high time we prioritize my priorities because we seem to be NOT learning anything from our mistakes. We keep hearing how the greatest threats to humanity are terrorism, poverty, diseases, etc. but seldom does anybody point to the most blaring fact of our planet: Our population is exploding. Even China has backtracked from its one-child policy. India is far away from implementing two-children policy, let alone one. We are fundamentally destroying the planet while announcing that we want our grandchildren to have the best. Best of what? Mars?
PS. I was in the market yesterday and on noticing that my laces were untied, i tried the one-leg stand to impress Lord Shiva. Being an unfit person who hasn’t ran since quitting Mumbai for Gurgaon — no local trains here to chase — i was struggling to keep balance. Got one shoe done somehow and lifted the other leg when a little boy, aged five or six, appeared out of nowhere and touched my left elbow. He asked, “You need help?” and kept supporting me until my my lace was back into an eternal embrace.