Revolution Evolution

An inherent difference...

...between Indian youngsters here and those in India... something I discovered recently, in more clarity.

In India, you see a disparate and startling difference between attitudes when dealing with their friends, and when dealing with their elders. They are absolute goofballs when they're with their friends, but when it comes to somber things like prayers, traditions, respect to elders - they are totally different people. Take the scene in RDB when Aamir's grandad walks in, and Aamir looks at Siddharth and goes, "Karan. Bujhale" (asks Karan to extinguish his cigarette). Its a minor gesture, but it shows where these kids come from.

That's missing here. Although I find it cool that kids here take their parents and elders to be equals, and treat them on par with their friends, I only see a handful - a miniscule pinch, really - of them actually displaying a degree of due respect. Maybe its because the generations here have a more lackadaisical approach when bringing up their kids, and are so wrapped up with sorting their own lives, their status, their taxes and their paychecks, that they don't get around to (don't have the time to) substantially convey those meaningful values from the des, on to their kids. In the bargain, these kids are brought up more dominantly by others (daycare/school), and that results in their complete Americanization. The balance is lost, and when they hit their teens, they earn the much-hated sobriquet-acronym title of an 'ABCD'. And then you have the parents, who somewhere between filing their tax extension and switching insurance companies, stare at their heavily-pierced, spiky-highlight-haired, cuss-mouthed disrespectful offspring and think, "where did we go wrong?".

The year is 2006. Do you know who your kids are?