Yesterday’s rain brought back fond memories of childhood. Mother used to make lip-smacking, tongue-tickling, finger-licking savouries. She was indeed a great cook. Every time she cooked, she had to for fifteen people in our home. Yess..! I was blessed to have been born in a joint family (a blessing or a curse?!). My friend- yet worse, she lived in a family of twenty five including her father’s small scale industry’s workers. (worse or better?!).
Our home indeed was a large one to capacitate the fifteen of us. I love to ponder of the joyful moments spent on the enormous oonjal (swing) swinging and playing ‘Conductor,Conductor…’ with six of my cousins. The hooting and screams of laughter and joy I experienced, brings tears of nostalgia from my eyes today. Such hoots and screams would stop abruptly at hearing grandfather’s footsteps. Grandfather was a Freedom Struggle Fighter and a Congress Leader(the then Congress). Obviously he was a strict disciplinarian. Everyday from 8:00 to 8:30 pm, our abode was filled with absolute silence except for Ms. Shobana Ravi’s news reading on Doordarshan with grandfather’s munching of his dinner. He was a perfect example of a matriarch.
I don’t remember of a single night going to bed without seeing my father and playing with him, seated over his shoulders. Father ran a successful cloth merchandise jointly with one of his brothers (my periappas) and grandfather. He worked hard from nine to nine with a lunch break of two hours when he would come home and the only times of privacy mother remembers of spending quality time with father. It was an everyday ritual for me to go to bed with father when he pat and put me to sleep narrating the stories from Ramayana.
As I write Ramayana, I get reminded of Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan which was telecasted on Sunday mornings on Doordarshan, the only channel our generation survived with! These were times when the entire family assembled in the spacious hall with some of the underprivileged neighbours who didn’t own a TV. In spite of not understanding a single damn word of Hindi we all watched it together and talked about it for hours. Not only did Doordarshan entertain us with Ramayan, but also with music shows like Chithrahaar and Surabhi, which were earnestly awaited to be watched. Not to be missed out were, the serials Shakthimaan, Chandrakantha, Rajkahaani and the weekend’s Hindi and regional language movies , which enthralled us. Those were the times of bliss!
As I think of weekends, I get reminded of the sweet Sundays- father’s only holiday, most of which was spent in sleeping and taking rest by him. But Sunday evenings were solely family time. He used to carry me accompanied by mother and we used to go a famous temple of our town. How I loved being carried on those endearing arms! I enjoyed reading the temple’s history and the mythologies with illustrations for an innumerable number of times. Playing in the sand and mother feeding me pieces of coconut are fond memories. After temple visit, it was dinner at Hotel Richie Rich! I greatly enjoyed watching the gold fish in their aquarium while savouring the sumptuous food. And today I have a huge aquarium at home with a much more expensive variety of fish but it doesn’t appeal to me like that one at the hotel.
Even today my greatest happiness is to watch Rajnikanth’s movies, which I enjoyed watching with the entire family. These were our night-outs without grandfather’s knowledge, of course. I learnt values from his catchy ‘punches’ and one-liners which would deliver the essence of life. I still remember the funny moments when one of my younger cousins came back home and narrated the movies’ plots and tried to imitate the action sequences with the ‘dishyums, dishooms and oo..eh..ah’. Life was beautiful listening to Maestro Ilaiyaraja's music!
We are a from a generation which remains as the bridge between the pre-globalised and post-globalised eras. We have been blessed to witness both the ends of the same coin. But- our children? Or even we for that matter, do we enjoy our lives like how our parents did, two decades ago? My father worked from nine to nine and has got enough bank balance and contentment in life. My husband works twenty-four seven yet strives for more. My mother was a yester-year house wife yet was busily engaged and never had uttered the word ‘boredom’ in her life time. I am a working woman with my entire day filled with activities yet end with a feeling of void every day. I had no computer, i-pad and gadgets but only one TV with only one channel to watch yet my leisure was interestingly spent than my daughter's, who has all these gadgets and a forty-two inch flat screen TV connected to a home theatre system yet every five minutes she complains of getting into boredom. My father was a business man yet I enjoyed quality time with him every day. Her father is an office-goer yet she dreams of the few minutes, she would spend quality time with him. My vacations were spent in neighbouring towns or visiting relatives, yet I had pages to write about ‘My Vacation’ essay when my teacher told me to. Her vacations are spent in exotic locations yet she doesn’t have even a paragraph to express her thoughts.
The terms Liberalisation, Globalisation and Technological Revolution are still far out of reach from many people’s understanding. But to me, they are very simple terms. In their absence, a house was a home filled with heart-warming humans. With their prevalence and growth, homes have become warehouses filled with gadgets.
But- eventually, change is the only constant (again I am getting reminded only of a Rajnikanth’s dialogue). And anything that doesn’t embrace change would become extinct with the passage of time. It’s time to awaken from our great slumber and plunge into action. Is it not our responsibility to provide our next generation with gaieties which we have enjoyed in our childhood? Let’s stop embarking a journey without knowing its route or destination. Let’s stop this rat race. After all life is to live and let live. It’s time to spend with our own families rather than socialising through media.
Let responding to our off-springs and providing them the kind of nurture and care we enjoyed, become our prime responsibility rather than meeting up dead lines. Teach them to run after butterflies rather than an unknown animated stranger in ‘Temple Run’. Teach them to appreciate and enjoy reading the classic while they enjoy their Harry Potters, Percy Jacksons and Wimpy Kids. Show them how life was wonderful without their gadgets. Prove to them that this world has more to explore than their ‘groovy’ gadgets. Teach them life has more meaning rather than achieving honours at Cambridge or Harvard. Teach them the greatest asset they have to acquire in life is people and not acres of land. Relive your childhood in your child! Live and let live. By let live, I mean ‘lead by example’. Put away all the gadgets which have entered your life through liberalisation, globalisation and technological revolution at least for a day of the week and explore the niceties of the vast expanse of this Universe with your next generation.
Last but not least, do not become nuclear in your own small nuclear family!!
Nuclear getting nuclear!
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