Do the young think the same way we did back then?

One keeps hearing about how attitudes of youngsters today are so different from what ours were, back then. My response to this usually is that it isn’t really so: young people have essentially behaved, and believed the same way: it’s just that the older generations tend to romanticize the past and suggest that they had better ideals and attitudes. But two rather unconnected remarks by two young men in their twenties, who I interviewed this week, made me rethink a bit.

One of them was looking to chuck his well-paying night shift call-centre job because he wanted to ‘settle down’; which on probing, turned out to be a condition set by his (wealthier) in-laws to be. You see, he was to marry a girl who was more qualified and earning far more than he, and when I asked him if he didn’t feel uncomfortable about this, his response was, “I don’t feel uncomfortable eating off my wife; after all, I live in 2007, and can’t be expected to have attitudes of 20 years ago.”

The other chap, who’d been forced to start working just after school because his father passed away, had this to say about his situation: “I had to make money, because all that my father left us was a house.”

Smart, I thought as I listened to these statements, even though inwardly wincing a bit. And try as I might I couldn’t help but imagine if I, or my friends could’ve ever uttered them, when we were young.

I mean I’m not a chauvinist, and sincerely believing in the equality of the sexes, have always tried to ensure that my wife took all the opportunities that came her way to become financially and emotionally independent. I would even venture to think I created some of those opportunities. And today, when she’s as, if not more, economically independent and successful than I, it still never enters my head that I could sit back and live off her earnings. Not one bit. Egoistic? Old-fashioned? Sigh—you’re right!

Things have changed, after all, haven’t they? Because I can’t remember ever, EVER, thinking what my father would ‘leave’ for me. Call it the foolhardy idealism of the Ayn Rand-seventies, or an unspoken respect for the generation that fought Partition and picked up the broken pieces of their lives all by themselves, I’ve always believed in the power of the individual. And that to me has meant that parents can only leave behind their ideals and values, not property and cash for their kids. If in the process, they ensured that children got educated in good schools (and this they often did, to the best of their ability and means), so much the better. But, that’s about it. The next generation must generate its own wealth, and make its own place in this world.

So, what’s happening here? Have the young become more ‘Western’ or “Global’ as many lament? Well, maybe, but remember, most Westerners are fiercely individualistic—after all they leave home at 16 and pay for their own higher education. And neither the average man nor the woman believes seriously that he or she can live off the earnings of the spouse.

I suspect this is more a case of getting impressed by the veneer than the solid wood inside. In a way, our kids are just reacting to newfound materialistic success that India is experiencing today. They still have to grow up and make a place for themselves in this world!

Sorry if that sounds old-fashioned and clichéd. But that’s how it is!

The looming spectre of the empty nest

What do you do when it strikes you that in less than six months, the nest that you’ve toiled to build all these years is suddenly going to become, very simply, empty?

Shrug it away, sit down with head-in-hands, or smile your way to the Himalayas?
Or, probably, go through each one of those, in turn.

The euphoria of learning that your elder son has made it to Oxford dissipates rather quickly when it hits you that he will be onboard a plane in just 5 months from now. And the relief of finally escaping the terror of Higher Secondary Board exams that you’ve virtually lived with your younger son for many months, too evaporates when you realize that he’ll probably start living in college hostel in 4 months.

The first reaction is only human—that of shocking disbelief: this happens only in the movies, and that too, to 60-year-olds. Not to 40-somethings who’ve hardly had a moment of respite from their own crazy, whirlwind fight for survival, and have just built their own house, in preparation for that golden sunset which they think is many, many moons away. What will happen to their rooms for all the years they’re going to be away (you still assume, of course, that one day, they will return)? Who will you come back home for after a tiring day of work? How the hell will you pitch tent by yourselves in the hills? Who will you share the loads of wisdom you’ve so assiduously collected all these years?

In phase two of your bad dream, you whack yourself on the head and return to reality in 21st century India. In this day and time, you can hardly assume your children, even if they’re both sons, are going to stay with you till you decide it’s time to leave them with a one-way ticket to the skies. Especially when you’ve grown them up on a diet of strong individualism spiced with the idealism of chasing one’s dreams. So, the only sane option is to help them on their way, as you’ve done all these years. Which means you pitch in the search for scholarships, buying woolies (and brollies!) to face the gloomy weather in ol’Blighty, setting up a hostel room in the North Campus, et al. with a beeg smile of course: remember, never fight or cry before your children!

In the next, and hopefully the last phase of your nightmare, you imagine all the wonderful possibilities this situation can actually give rise to. And savour the thought of living through each one of it…

Scenario 1: Summer in Oxfordshire
Imagine the thought of not having to spend unbearable summers in dusty Delhi or grimy Gurgaon. But instead, joining your son in the pleasant, clean environs of the English countryside. In-haaaale, hold, relax, and then ex-hale slowly…it’s already working wonders for your health. Really, the possibilities are immense: you don’t have to pine for the dark, frothy Guinness anymore, or catch up with The Premier League only on ESPN. So what if you you’ll have to crowd in with your son in his single room, eat microwaved packets of Bangladeshi food, travel mainly in the Tube, sigh at the spiraling prices when you visit Oxford Street, or even, catch hay fever in the process? You will, after all, be united as a family, and family, as we all know, is the biggest thing that man invented after the spear.

Scenario 2: Roaming the North Campus, again
Winter, then, can be a glorious, sunny affair spent with your younger son. Binging on chaat and chola bhatura in Kamla Nagar occasionally, bringing him home every other weekend, talking about his future and his love interests, can all be very supportive for yo ur son, and can probably add years to your life too! As can brisk, late evening walks taken with him, observing how colleges have hardly changed since the times you stalked the campus as a student.

Scenario 3: Gazing into the sunset, together
Since your children merely come through you in a Gibranesque way, it’s wise after all, to let go of them, at least in spirit. And think once again about the two of you—after all you did get married because you wanted to spend the rest of your life together! Now, you can drive off into the hills without the hassle of packing enough baby food and diapers, visit all the relatives and friends you neglected all these years, not cook dinner every evening, hold hands anywhere in that huge house, even, make love in every room, and no one will ever care. How wonderful!

Scenario 4: Alone again, naturally
In a somewhat Gilbert O’Sullivan way, you realize that after all you must let go of all attachments and become one with nature again. But before you swing the proverbial last pack on your back as you head into sanyas, you decide to enroll for a PhD (in metaphysics, probably). Somehow, do all the things you wanted to but cruel life did not let you. The exhilaration of being able to get back into academia, the thrill of bungee-jumping, skiing in the Alps, scuba-diving off the Maldives, or a leisurely walk in the lazy Mediterranean, all appear rather rosy. As does the final picture of you building yourself a hut in the hills, next to a stream, living off fruita and fresh air.

But alas, the extended-REM-sleep, final phase of your glorious dream punctures and mutilates it in a totally real yet surreal fashion. It’s when you wake up with a start and remember your dream stark vividly—then realize you’re not awake at all, but still in your nightmare, or somewhere in between. It’s in this twilight zone between reality and fantasy; you realize you’re destined to live. And you must.

Which is when you pull the sheet over your face hoping to get some extra winks of sleep before you wake up. Even as you mentally turn over all the looming crises in the day ahead, and your midlife in general that you still have to face, much before those 6 months are over!