The other day I was going through
this post in one of the blogs listed in my blogroll. The concept of a ‘fatherly figure’ never really appealed to me. One of the most classic examples was portrayed out in the post itself, where a fatherly figure turned out to be one giving a lot of **** in someone’s life and bla bla bla…
Strange have become the world nowadays.
I keep on reflecting how this place of ours could’ve been one of the greatest and happy places to live, but somehow, somewhere within me tends to give me a very unpleasant thought that man want to make life miserable. For instance, for ages, the relationship between a child and his parents have been considered holy, the best bond between two persons, the unbreakable etc etc. In the last two-three months I’ve come across 4-5 incidents in India where either parents have plotted murder of their sons or vice-versa. And you said India is changing!
People have somehow managed to stick their priorities to the wrong things. And that has been the root cause of all troubles. Of all these 4-5 cases that I mentioned, almost all involved thoughts of murdering their daughters/parents so that:
- Caste problems – a Punjab daughter was planning to marry someone of another caste so her parents killed her.
- ‘Social status’ – a son of 30, was a drunkard who used to borrow money from neighbors. His parents claimed that they were of ‘respectable’ background, so they decided to kill their son who was soiling their social status.
- Love: Parents were against such a marriage and the son/daughter killed them so that he can marry the person whom he loved.
Yes there are fanatics undoubtedly. But such things were rarely seen in old days – days when our grandparents or our parents grew up, and let us not forget that they grew up in a society that is branded so often by our modernists as being superstitious, uneducated and full of illiterates. Romance, love, caste problems existed mutually at that time, but killing someone to protect his/her own caste or love affair was unheard and unimaginable at the same time. We have heard of so many instances where a family/village have rusticated persons/spouses/lovers because they violated the caste norms of the colony. Yes it was bad, but far better than what it has turned out today – cold-blooded murder!
That’s just one side of the coin. Some would madly fall in love (at least they would claim that), marry only to divorce a year later. While the insaner ones would plot revenge upon a rejection of marriage proposals from their girl-friends, society continues to decline with moral values about to become extinct ten years from now.
On a personal note, I wonder of what use were these relationships if they were to be butchered like this in the first place? Why have a son whom you plan to murder to protect your caste, social status and ‘respect’? Why don’t you have a pet dog instead who would wag to your tunes? Why have a girl-friend on whom you’d go all guns blazing the moment she rejects to marry you? Do family relationships matter? Does any relationship matter? We no more share relationships with anyone. A bond that just takes one blow to break wasn’t a bond in the first place at all, it was just a mended piece of wreck only waiting for a strong wind to blow it in the gush of waters.
I told you right at the beginning: Man want to make their own life miserable.
I, for myself have followed a simple rule – control emotions. Keep simple things simple. I really do not know any such thing that can wreck a parent-child relationship to an extent of inviting murder. Divorce okay, separations okay – but murder??? The moment you bias yourself by allowing emotions to get over your logic – you’re in for trouble. Like, my grandmother on my father’s side passed away in 2010, I still miss her like anything. She did not stay with us for long, but whatever little I had got of her, I had enjoyed it, cherished it, and now long for those moments again. They comprised of elementary childish stuff, like enjoying the sunshine on her lap when I was small, teasing her and playing the fool in the afternoons, playing ludo and quarreling with her and then urging her to stay on for some more days whenever she would leave us. Golden memoirs!
I wish the modern day generation start to value ‘relationships’ a bit more – give it the worth it deserves.