Popularity
shows are good indicators of what one’s thinking constitutes. If you happen to
be a worried parent of an adolescent kid whose brain is unreadable, I suggest
you start watching T.V. together.
They
are a much smarter generation. No Saas
Bahu tearjerkers or convoluted joint family dramas. They go for the good
stuff. Lingerie fashion shows, sexy
stuff on music channels, action, horror and soft porn serials with teenage
actors. Good logical choices.
But
sometimes it comes as a complete shock to you when, day after day, your kid is
glued to the television watching a music popularity show which is a long drawn
affair of listening to crappy singers who get eliminated and judges who listen to
such crap. Yes, I am talking about both the Indian and the American idol shows.
The
amazing thing is that this is the same kid who downloads enormous gigabytes of
good music on the cell phone, iPod and laptop every day. Why do kids stay glued
to programmes which air substandard performances of substandard performers?
Primarily
because it easy to associate with losers. It is a relief from their own unrelenting
pressure for performance.
Teenagers
in India are so pressurized to perform, be it in school or otherwise, that it
is quite natural for them to feel a more sympathetic closeness to the losers rather
than the winners. The performers who cry at their failure in public view are
revered. Unlike their parents, teenagers can watch a movie where the hero loses
the heroine and still call it good. It is quite a relief to fail, even if it is
just voyeurism.
We
are not good at being impartial judges when it comes to comparing our
generation with our kids.
We
actually belong to a generation where our ideologies talked of freedom, savings,
hard work and moral values. Not that we swallowed it without reservations. Some
of it was good enough to be proud of, a lot was sheer rubbish.
And
as the story goes, the greatest idol of our generation (we even called him
father of our nation) insisted on human dignity and stuff like that. He
insisted on ignoring the notice in a train compartment which said that (with or
without a ticket) Indians were not allowed in.
But
impressions have dimmed, some of the kids of that era graduated into
motherhood, and probably forgot.
Today,
the parks of Delhi have notice boards saying that children are not allowed to
play, but mothers quietly slink away. Because -- Come on yaar, this is not the freedom movement of pre-1947, yaar !
The
ideals of each generation change, because, as Author John.V.Gardner stated - “Each
generation, presented with victories that it did not win for itself, must
rediscover the meaning of liberty, justice – ‘the words on the monuments’. A
generation that has fought for freedom may pass that freedom on to the next
generation. But it cannot pass on the intense personal knowledge of what it
takes to win freedom.”
Values
and ideals undergo change. Clinging to the past is good business only for
politicians.
So
why do we deny our children a basic honesty by letting them decide their own
Indian idol? Be it the half naked music diva, the drug ridden poet, or that
silly millionairess who can neither
count nor account.
And
why does it surprise you that for a long time now the Indian idols for Indians
have not been Indians. We must have national pride that we have not limited our
children’s thinking to the perimeter and shore lines of any one country.
Relevance
for each generation is their choice. How dare we impose our ideals on them.Let
go and let them be. That has to be our motto.
We
gave our next generation the gift of television and internet, but can you blame
them if they find Brad Pitt sexier than Amitabh Bachhan?
Copyright © 2013, Lima Sehgal
Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are
expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet
magazine & the author
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