Generation of lost childhood

Ira Pande

Next year, 2023, will mark my mother’s centenary and while her publishers have planned a number of events and releases, my siblings and I have wondered how we can best remember her. My brother, who now lives in the US, along with some alumni friends, made a very generous donation to their alma mater for a state-of-the-art medical centre (something on the lines of the Harvard Medical School) for a top-notch research and teaching body that will involve an interface of engineering and medical research. The proposed centre in Kanpur will develop inexpensive medical equipment (ventilators, dialysis machines and such) to make them available at affordable prices to the poorest. Wishing to do more, my brother set up a Translation Centre, in memory of our mother, to provide students with course material in Hindi since many struggle with English.

My mother, the writer Shivani, was a prolific writer and wrote in several genres: fiction, travelogues, memoirs, essays, plays and so on but we had almost forgotten that she also wrote some charming stories for children. These were first told as bedtime stories to her grandchildren and later published. Being the unworldly person she was, she had given them to a small publishing house and there they languished, forgotten and neglected. As I was re-reading them, I was struck by how unerringly she had evoked the sense of fun and wonder that all children most love. We all know that nonsense captures the attention of children instantly. Think of the nonsense verse of Edward Lear or the Lewis Carroll roller-coaster ride that Alice goes in a wonderland and you will understand how far we have come away from that kind of imagination. In our own literary tradition, ‘Abol-Tabol’ and ‘Sandesh’ — publications brought out by Satyajit Ray’s father and later the great filmmaker himself — are an example. Another is that gem called ‘Malgudi Days’ by RK Narayan that has never ceased to enchant children.

How can we not understand what gives children true happiness as it leads them into an enchanted terrain? And yet, I find that the millennial parents of today want their children to become aware of environment and gender issues and such high-minded problems rather than teach them to enjoy the natural world around them. Similarly, school curricula are now more concerned about politically correct lessons than opening up the minds of children to the everyday issues that need highlighting. How to behave with sensitivity towards those who are older or socially different, how to be accepting of difference in whatever shape one encounters it, these need to be planted in young minds. Laughter is now no longer the full-throated thing it once was largely because most children are alone when they read a funny story. Parents encourage their young wards to think and act like adults with the result that the innocence of childhood and its sense of wonder have become casualties.

I look at the faces of young children in my colony and they all seem much older than they are. Is this because they spend more time with their parents and nannies than with other children outdoors? Little girls wearing make-up and talking like their mothers or aunts in Tik-Tok memes may seem cute but have we considered how confused this crossover from one age group into another may leave them? Talent shows that make little girls dance to vulgar songs are revolting to watch but a huge success nevertheless. Has the world gone quite mad? Or have we failed to see that too much attention to what is considered ‘correct’ has made us all lose a sense of innate fun and a capacity to laugh at oneself? Whatever the reason, most schools now have therapists that deal with the anxieties and fears of children to help them. Time was when extended families and the neighbourhood provided this service for free. Corporal punishment has long been banned but mental cruelty is a new addition to the woes that confront young children now. Checking them when they are out of line is not always a good idea because you may damage the child’s self-esteem. Really? How else is one to teach a child to be mindful of the feelings of others?

Unsupervised access to entertainment available so freely on their devices is the topic of another concern. We have recently seen the enormous damage it has done through its misuse by political groups that have prepared a tool-kit for confronting ‘state oppression’. Violence — whether of the gun in the US or stone-pelters elsewhere — can never be justified. What is even more alarming is its introduction as a tool offered to young, irresponsible youth. These are trends we have already seen wreaking havoc in other countries, then why do we wish to subvert the harmony between different religions and communities that was the greatest legacy bequeathed by the Buddha and Gandhiji to us? Paying lip service to that tradition while stoking anger and violent protests will surely destroy us long before climate change does.

My earnest plea to all young parents is to behave as parents, and not as friends. My mother once said to me, “In our time, we feared our parents and in-laws, not our children. Explain to me why your generation practises the reverse of this.”

Wise words to remember as her centenary draws near.

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