A dear friend of mine, Debasis Chatterjee, wrote the following letter to a group of friends (me included) expressing his hurt from the current change of priorities in people's lives. Please feel free to share your thoughts connected to this post.
People may blame us for 'generation gap' kind of talk. But, it is true that the prioities have changed over time.
Hindi cinemas and TV soap's have a lot to blame. And our shameful desire to copy from the West, be it dress or music or culture at large. (side note on this act of 'copy'ing. It is very selective, as we do not copy the good things from the West, such as their willingness to do hard work and general sincerity about work. In general, they do not have to be supervised.)
The priorities have changed for most people's lives. I suspect that we no more have genuine teachers instilling good values and foundation of Indian history (such as Netaji, Gandhiji, Vivekananda) in young students' minds. Quiz questions these days will have topics from Bollywood rather than Indian history or mythology. Silly. Republic Day or Independence Day programmes in the school premises were much awaited for by young students. I vividly recall our Geography teacher drawing India's map on a board in front of all of us and that would set the stage for the Headmaster to come, do flag hoisting and then give us a great speech.
People are in the rat race for material values. Many have to succumb to corruption, just to meet ever increasing demands of himself, wife and his children. Flat TV, laptop, expensive car, expensive dress and shoes - the list is endless.
People are selfish. How often do we hear of selfless acts? People are down to atomic families and cannot imagine having guests more than just a short visit. They always think of 'Atithi, kob jayoge?'. It was commonplace in Kolkata in earlier days to have most families to have long-term guests from ancestral village place, either studying in university or working in an office. That was so much accepted in joint family structures where people shared or rather cared to share.
Do we find dedicated teachers any more? My Maths teacher from 'Hindu School', who was reputed to be one of the best in the city in my time, did not even charge me for his services of private tuition for the period when Naxaite movements handicapped him from coming over to my place to provide tuition. He instead offered a few selected students to come to his Nebutala 'mess' (that is where he stayed as a bachelor). We would pay him visits from time to time, and get some quality time from Late Baren-babu free of charge.
Do not get me wrong. There are still good acts happening here and there, even now. But, it appears to be exception than 'order of the day'.
Any comments are welcome to this trail of thoughts.
2 comments:
Yes, priorities have changed and so has the time. We are currently living in a make-believe world of technology. We are so scared of silence that we tend to surround ourselves with sight & sound all the time - iPod, iPad, Facebook, Internet, FM Radio, etc. Indeed, we are scared of confronting our real selves, so we keep ourselves busy with something or the other. But, every phase has to end. So, this phase will also come to an end. Eternal human values can't die for ever. They will rise again in some form or the other. If nothing else, mother nature will force us to resurrect them. People are already talking of those old good practices which conserved our vital earth resources. Do you know that we waste an average of 12 buckets of water while taking a shower, whereas 1 bucket of water was all one needed to take a satisfactory bath?
The points raised by Mr. Devasis are relevant and thought provoking. The problem today is that due to the information overload and abuse we face, even good thought provoking issues, live for a fleeting moment in our garbage dumps (minds).
To me one way forward for all of us is to trash the trash...we need to spring clean our mind and understand that it is a precious store. I wish we could spend 10 minutes everyday purging this trash....good thoughts and intentions will inevitably lead us to good actions.
Post a Comment