Generation gap

‘Good old days’ - Looking at the ways of the youngsters of today, bemoans the older generation.
‘ Oldies are real birds, yaar,’ rejoinder of the youth of today.

Generation gap is now evident in all classes of people. A businessman’s son takes the stand that he would have nothing to do with business and he wants to be a singer. An MBA topper declines a remunerative job and joins an NGO. A youngster tells parents that he does not want to do a regular job and will be only a guitarist. A young girl from a village wants to become a cine star. Even yester years film heroines are unable to adjust with the body exposure their daughters are willing to go through for publicity.

Both parents and their wards have valid reasons for taking these polemic stands. Generation gap was part of human history. As a philosopher said ‘ even though the younger generation may not be committing patricide, they do definitely indulge in patricide of the ideas of older generation.’ The gap was in tolerable limits for a long time and hence digestible. Not any more. During the last one or two decades the gap has widened to such an extent that oldies are finding it difficult to accept and adjust to the change. And many a youngster wonder what is wrong with the old people.

Let us analyse the perspectives of both on various matters


· ‘ What is wrong with tight jeans and shirts, high heel shoes, having boy friends, incessantly talking to friends over the phones, spending evenings, occasionally to late nights with both girl and boy friends, spending considerable part of income to their dress, make up and outing.’ asks the girls of today. Parents frown.
· The youngsters of today go in for different hair shades, i.e., particularly girls, they want more say about their marriages, attitude of friends are friends ( not influenced by caste or region ), exposure of midriff, sleeveless shirts, tight fitting dresses in the case of girls, own car in instalment payment, occasional smoking and drinking, going abroad for jobs, working with NGOs at a pittance, girl is 27 and not yet interested in marriage ( because of chasing career ), ignoring extended families, absolute resistance to dowry, paying Rs. 1000 / Rs. 2000 for a shoe or purse, quick change of jobs sometimes even for a lower salary, why read newspapers, music and mobiles are the life - Many a parent find it difficult to adjust and accept these and other traits of upwardly mobile youngsters of today .
· Parents slogged all their lives holding on to the lowly jobs and earning small sums of money. Necessarily they have adopted to a life of economical living. But the youngster today often starts with a salary which could be higher than the salary his / her father was earning after 30 years of service. It is inevitable that the approach of both generation on money and spending would be different. Saving was a matter of faith to earlier generation whereas to the current generation it has no meaning. Switching jobs was not done thing in the case of parents whereas today’s youngsters take such change of jobs in their stride.
· Parents are afraid of love affairs of their wards, not to talk of sex before marriage. They are mortally afraid of unwanted pregnancy.
· Savings and sticking to the job are for birds – parents throw their hands at this approach of youngsters.
· ‘ I will tell you when I want to get married ‘ so say many a girl today to the exasperation of the parents.
· ‘ Becoming a house-wife. Silly concept. If the boy and his parents are not agreeable at my continuing to work, let us forget the proposal for marriage.’ Statement of girls to which parents have hardly any answer.
· “ Yes I am married more than four years back. But that does not mean I should get pregnant. I may decide not to have children at all’ So says many a girl. Obviously parents are bewildered.
· Just because your father was a disciplinarian, don’t try to be the same with me.
· ‘Yes austerity was your credo. You did not have much money to spend in your younger days. But the situation has changed. So don’t impose the situation which prevailed in your time’ so says the youngster of today.
· ‘ I have no time for your relatives or friends. I love you. That is all. Let us not make the same an issue.’ Parents are bewildered.
· And more. The list is endless.

Yesterday’s world in which parents lived is beyond the comprehension of the youngsters of today.

1. That their parents / grand parents lived in a world without electricity, not to talk of TV and cricket. But that was so in the 40s and 50s in respect of those lived in villages, with cities witnessing the first dawn of changes.

2. Electricity: The day we got electricity in our house in the 50s and fan and radio all the members of the house-hold were in the grip of ecstasy for a number of days. Switching on the fan brought everybody in the house-hold near the fan to enjoy the unimaginable luxury of waves of air swirling around us. Added to that was voice emanating from the radio. Except for the music, English and Hindi announcements in the radio were not comprehensible to us. It did not matter. It was magic to us. Light, fan and radio were put on only for short duration in each day either because of power cuts or because our elders thought that otherwise we would be spoiled and addicted to these equipments. We felt we have arrived. We held our head high. In all our conversation with others who did not have the exquisite luxury of having these items, we brought the subject often to impress them with our advancement. After a year or so, we started dreading power cuts which were often, because by then we were hooked on to electric light, fan and radio. Then for a few decades the situation was status quo. Then came transistor followed by TV, with only a few hours programme initially. By today’s standards, Black and white TV programmes were absolutely dull and yet those who had TV never missed the programmes. And those who had transistor carried it everywhere with them, because the same was a prestigious symbol of luxury.

3. Traveling: Except for distances more than 10 or 15 kilometers, traveling was done by walking and occasionally by bullock/horse cart. Travel by bus was considered as a luxurious experience. Even owning a cycle was a matter of prestige and that of motor cycle a symbol of being rich. The few who owned cars only used the same rarely, because largely it was a symbol of affluence.

4. Luxury items: At the time of schooling, luxury items consisted of sandals, more than four shirts or half pants and a ball point pen. An ice cream or seeing a movie once a while – the ultimate bliss started and ended in these. Concept of pocket money was alien to the culture then prevailing.

5. Marriages & festivals : Both were community affairs in which all participated. Talking points were related to these activities before and after the events.

6. Home front: The only person who had a say in all matters in the house was the family head. Children or youngsters never dared to give their opinions. Even grown ups had minimal say, with the voice of female folk being muted. We know and you don’t know was the attitude of elders towards youngsters. Venturing to argue with elders often ended with caning of the youngsters. Education in respect of girls in most cases ended during the time of high schooling. Girls, once they cross puberty, were not supposed to be visible or laugh loudly and only talk with low voice. Once a girl reaches the age of 16 or 17 elders start looking for alliances, with the girls having no say. Marriage was essentially between two families and not so much of the girl and boy. And in a year or two after the marriage the girl was expected to give birth to a child.

Widows were considered as bad omen. Some of the castes insisted on widows shaving their heads, being almost invisible in the house, walking bare foot, never expected to laugh and even talk with low decibel.

1. Race for jobs: Excepting a few who could join a collage, in the case of most, passing matriculation meant search for jobs meaning clerical jobs, which were very few even in the nearby towns and cities, forcing most to migrate to large cities in the country ( some to foreign countries ) or joining the army. Government job was the prized one and the norm was that a person who was lucky to get a Government job retired with one or two promotions. Even in the case of private sector, change of job was a rare phenomenon. And once a person got the job, he had to support financially life long his family back home.

2. Austerity: With low income levels, frugal living in those times was inevitable. Since one had to financially support the family back home, after getting a job, there was hardly surplus money. This led to people having jobs in cities continuing to live frugally. And then this type of living got into their psyche. This is the main reason for the elders in the cities in these days not being able to accept somewhat spend thrift life of today’s youngsters. From the beginning children were conditioned not to have wants. That conditioning did not change in the case of many even in later years when earning had gone up enabling spending a bit lavishly on occasion.

- Yes, there is the generation gap.