“Derailed”

The Europeans, Indians, South Americans, Chinese, Japanese and people from various countries migrated to America, built the United States and created wealth and success stories for them.  So did they in India after the exit of the British and collapse of the kingdoms of various regions.  Many Indian leaders collectively came together to build an independent India and commemorate the small businesses across the nation.  To accomplish this, I must believe that the people had a vision to build a dream for their country and themselves and would have worked and toiled, suffered and fallen many a time to achieve the success they possess now. There are many successful people out there from various countries today reminiscing about their past and the suffering they have gone through.

All of them had one main goal besides their entrepreneurial skills: their children and family.  They worked hard and tightened their belts, gave their children the best of everything – education to toys and comfort.  I need to be included here as one among the millions who worked hard to make my country proud and create wealth for myself and my family.  I have many stories to talk about, right from the 1st U.S. Dollar I saw to the times I have spent on unreserved trains travelling within India, carrying shrimp baskets on my head, and soliciting help from financers and lenders and so on to build my dream.  I could perhaps write a 300-page book of what I have done in my life.  Stories…. never ending!!  Memories, interesting and scary.  But I still believe my generation has done their part.  Now my concern is the next generation.

If I sit down with my children and their friends, I could end up being Mr. boredom in the eyes of the current generation for making them listen to my stories of the past.  The question now is, what story will our children share with their children?  Are they working enough as their parents did?  Of course, there are exceptional cases.  But in general, they are all living in a comfort zone with no stories to tell.  They seem to be focussed and engrossed in social media and perhaps, not even picking the right friends and having no stories to tell.

It is time that our generation gave some space and independence to the new generation so that they could prove their capabilities and understand the pain that we went through to earn and become successful. This way, the new generation will have stories to tell.

According to me, this pandemic has completely derailed the fundamental and emotional understanding of our children, mostly the teenagers.   During the pandemic in India, schools had to recourse to on-line classes for the past two years.  Students would at times join in for the on-line classes with their videos switched off and when the teacher forces them, they switch the video on.  Was that the right on-line education?  It sems that the students managed to pass without the teachers testing the authenticity of their academic skills as there was no other way to assess them under the given circumstance.

Now with the pandemic under control and with restart of on-site classes and exams, will our students perform?  Will they be able to quickly deviate from the practices and habits they acquired during the pandemic, when they were not fully supervised by the teachers and parents?  Looks like detouring may be required.  This is not something that I would like to generalize, but for those of you who understand the real meaning of this topic, please take it seriously and talk to your children about your success stories and what your parents did for you.