Save the Children, Now
Monday, April 2nd, 2007 I have for a long time now, been upset with the kind of upbringing Indian children are getting. This refers to children born in the 90s and after. Things like the ones below simply disgust me, cause me pain and despair.
1) Children watching violent/ explicit movies that even adults feel horrified to see
2) Kids fighting with parents for the latest toy/ dresses/ gadgets.. what have you!
3) Teenagers sitting in Coffee Parlours….sipping a cappuccino worth 60 bucks
4) Teenagers surfing the net on the behest of ‘studying’
5) Students carrying mobiles (latest ones mind you), ipods, owning personal TVs
6) Children eating junk food and not good old Indian Cuisine of roti, dal and sabji.
This list is almost endless for me. I get this extremely discomforting feeling inside whenever I witness these things. And for those people who say that upbringing is better in the eastern cultures as compared to the west, I think it’s about time they realized it isn’t so, at least not now. I have observed so many families where at least two of these things are pretty much an everyday affair. And these are regular, normal, happy families.
Less than six months ago, I met this teenager who according to his parents surfs the net to get more information on his subjects. This kid now has his own profile on orkut. He goes to school, is about 16 years old and I wondered if he has ever read even his own books. I wonder why a kid his age would need to be on a social networking site. If you tell me, it helps keep in touch with friends, isn’t email good enough? So what is he doing unmonitored on the web? I shudder to think of the possibilities.
I have seen teenagers sit for hours on end in café’s. I don’t understand how these kids manage to get that much money. As a child I never got pocket money. And any money I did get for small kiddy parties used to be monitored. Now I am not saying that we should curb all freedom of youngsters, but I fail to understand how gossiping in coffee days’ and barista’s helps improve their lives. To add to this, some kids even smoke. Why if you ask them, answer just spats out you ‘Its Cool!’. Cool??? I will let you decide.
Even worse is young girls (I can’t even call them young, these are toddlers below the age of five) dancing to really invigorating Hindi movie numbers. And parents actually feeling proud! What has happened to the parents?? Have any of you seen the boogie woogie dance show, the kids version. Man, how I hated it. I could not stand it for a second. I don’t get why kids need to dance to numbers like ‘Dhak Dhak karne laga’ when many sweeter songs like ‘Imli ka boota’ exist. Isnt it time for children to dance to ‘Clap your hands’ kinda rhymes. I mean they have the rest of their lives to dance to other songs. I wonder what happens to moral policing when it comes to these shows. And historical movies like WATER get the axe….
I could go on and on about how every thing is dark and gloomy. Thankfully, I have come across two (yes, only two) families with amazing parent child bond. The relationship is open/ honest and I have never seen kids of these families needing to lie or hide stuff. I wish that one day we stop hiding things below the carpet, and have more open parent-child relationships. I think the clock is ticking away on this. I worry for the child of tomorrow. Save the children, Now.
