My Parent’s don’t understand ME?“East is East and West is West,And never the twain shall meet!”- Rudyard Kipling
This little verse is supposed to apply to roads, directions and maybe countries. However, it suits perfectly the lines of thinking that run between my parents on one hand and my college going crowd on the other hand. The two can never match. If the family is the cradle of civilization, then all I have to say is that civilization is doomed if my family is any example. Every person is different and it is rightly proved that seldom any of us have tried to change our chain of thoughts. The elders and the youngsters seem to be forever at war.
Take an ordinary simple action like switching on the TV. That little switch seems to have a built-in trigger that sets a war off in our living room. While we kids want to watch MTV, Channel V and catch up with the latest happenings around in the ‘H’ and ‘B’ town, my parents simply cannot understand what we admire in those orange haired, skinny, half clad ‘guys’ and ‘gals’ on the screen. “They will get a slipped disk with those heels”, vows my mother, while my father simply closes his eyes in horror! Fashion is almost an abusive word for them. My parents belonging to the ‘olden times’ just cannot take the skin show. (In their times the actors were well clothed with absolutely no part of the skin revealed). My mother in humor calls the poor producers and directors beggars for not having enough money to sew proper clothes for their actors.
Take another line of thought - Performance in the exams.
Why must I always get a few marks more than that myopic, bespectacled son of my mother’s friend? Can my parents not understand that one’s youth is the spring of one’s life and unless enjoyed today a winter of regret awaits me? That this is the age and it will never come back, BUT no “You must get into the merit list… learn from your friends; they study day-night and you barely sit for an hour.” Now who will tell them it’s not the quantity, but the quality that matters? Even if I sit for an hour, what I do in that hour with my books is what is important, but no, “You are now a grown up and not a kindergarten student. How can that one hour of study be enough for you? You need a good seven to eight hours…” is all I can hear. All I know is that they all get onto my nerves and into my hair.
HAIR! That’s another bone of contention, “Why can’t you boys have your hair cut short like your dad?” (She forgets that dad is getting bald) “Look at Dhoni’s bowling – um – batting – um – keeping. Huh! Whatever he does, not the length of his hair!” Now, how do we explain to them that long hair is ‘in’? It’s a new world and things have now changed. If girls can have their hair cut short like boys why can’t boys have their hair long? We truly believe in equality is what we say to justify and in turn all our parents do is shake their heads in disapproval. Oh no – I cry in anguish – when will my parents understand me?
I then turn my player for comfort – But that again brings another round of protest. Ustad Bismilliah Khan, Zakhir Hussain and Ravi Shankar symbolize music to my parents; they are good but then they are old. How on earth do we explain those complicated words like ‘Rock’, ‘Jazz’, ‘Rap’ etc to them? The last is what I get across my back if I don’t agree to switch to any other channel. My father loves to watch old songs and films and for them that is serene music. Heavy metal, hip-hop, the crazy club mixes are all just noise and madness for them. How do I tell them that I cannot dance at a party to classical music?
Even if we manage to settle down all these differences, there is one which simply cannot be resolved, the language. We agree that our language is not polished and well used but then when one can convey the same meaning in shorter form then why use complete words? Isn’t that a waste of words and time? My father cringes every time he sees me type a message to my friend, and when I send him a message all I receive in reply is ‘translate in English’. Now, what can be done of that?
But, all said and done, one thing is similar for both of us, the “love” that binds us together. I know there is a generation gap and we are living in two completely different environments and have different thought processes and ideas, but the roots are still the same. The respect that we have for our parents and the care and concern that they have for us doesn’t change with what we watch, what we wear or what language we use. Do not forget when we did not know how to speak, it was our parents who even understood our babbling and took good care of our needs and wishes. It is nothing but the changes in the world, the globalization and the influence of the different world’s on each other that is setting in and making the difference. It’s in the end how we take it. In spite of the differences I am really glad that I have them as my parents.
And honestly, all is not lost for us! I have a secret ally – my GRANDFATHER! Ever since he has retired, he has the ‘joie the vivre’ of a teenager. Somehow the rhythm of his life and the choice of language are in tune with ours. (He secretly admires the shortened language. “This is new and interesting, I wish our life was also as simple as this language” is what he says).
So “My PARENTS don’t understand me, BUT my GRANDPARENTS do!”
