What is with the generation? The gap between the young and old seems to be large...wider than the length of a nine yard saree, and this distance is probably too long for people from both generations to reach the other.
The Gen X and the Gen Y phenomenon have so rapidly caught the craze of its inheritors that they no longer feel the need to be inherited by anyone. They are individuals identical by birth but very much in search of their own identity.
Differences between generations are usually bound by cultural and societal upbringing and this gap is only a stark assertion of the variants in their experiences, opinions, habits and behaviour.
For instance,
When mom says, you are not to receive calls from any of your guy friends after 12 in the night, you retaliate because you feel that ‘women’ (apparently your mother) is still living in an old mesh and you wish you could get her out of it but ignore it as a gap between two similar (in body) but different intellectuals (in mind).
When you believe in partying hard with the shortest of clothes or literally living off...the purse strings you have been pulling...you hate the grandmother questioning which comes from older relatives. They are old; frustrated pig heads… is what you triumphantly preach.
When Dad advices his young lad to ride his bike slow, this ‘I am crazy about bikes' dude wonders whether the ‘Gods were really crazy’ when they sent his unadventurous dad down on earth....He doesn't have a sense of adventure…Poor him (you feel).
And while you are busy buzzing your girl friend or showering her with unnecessary ‘whats up babes/darling/ sweetheart’ smses, your mother prepares a delicacy for your father...and reveals her anxiety about treating him to a great meal.
You begin to smirk and wonder...when will they learn that in the world of technology, the stomach has no say....it is just the efficacy of the speed in your hands that manages to impress and not the food.
The youth prefer living on modern junked junk of burgers, pizzas and variants of KFCs, McDs but they hate roti, sabzi and daal...and feel it is all so traditional...and again begin to cringe about the huge generation gap.
But if you are still gaping for bigger gaps, we need to look far beyond our borders and water bodies….more than a Generation Gap we suffer from a “Cross-Continental GAP.”
Most of us today are a bunch of trying and dying hard 'wannabes'. The culture in the west has charmed us so much, that our own values go for a toss...and when the oldies try to have a say…we impinge calling it a Generation gap.
Today these visible differences can be rooted to our desire to imitate a culture that was never propagated by our forefathers but always considered elitist for a reason we do not know.
So while the old may prefer listening to ‘Pandit Ravi Shankar’, country music or ghazal maestros like ‘Pankaj Udhas’ or ‘Jagjit Singh’; we laugh at their stupidity for ignoring bollywood mish-mash, bootilicious Beyonce, belly shaking Shakira, hard rock or all that Hip-hop jazz. Where is the Generation-next heading then? Is this huge gap because of education or an impact of the west?
It is best though, to accept the differences and move on…rather than pondering about where and how the gap widened in the first place?
Today, the gap exists in the ever-present orthodox nature of the old and the young are just trying to stem out from these traditional beliefs…Some of them also call it the hypocrisy of the old while some feel ‘what is past is past’ and there is a need for change.
Inter-religious/caste marriages in India are the most obvious examples. While generations that preceded us believed that such marriages would never work, the generation today is trying hard to prove them wrong. Some are half-successful while some are basking in their triumphant success of proving their elders wrong.
The gap is widening, but slowly there is also a sense of acceptance which is coming way…though we cannot cut ourselves completely from the main stem, the branch is now learning how to bloom without the help of the stem.
To breakaway would mean that one generation just does not want to be a part of the other and finally decides to split. So for now we need to enjoy the gap…because with all the confrontations, arguments… what comes out is a person who is a confluence of Both.
