Relations

I don’t want to sound profane, but families these days tend to get displaced globally; rendering most of the not so close relations insignificant. Gone are the days when one got used to playing cricket, watching movies together with cousins (and their cousins) during summer vacations. We had fights because of the competition but we usually hung out together only to quickly forget each other at the end of every vacation. Those were times devoid of cell phones and the wait for the next meeting promised much more fun. Cut to present, we don’t have the time or inclination to plan vacations together, we rarely if at all talk by accident. In a sense the spirit doesn’t seem to be the same. We all seem to have resigned to the fact that we aren’t kids anymore. Every single act is measured in the realms of adulthood. Families are so protective of what’s happening with their kids that they can go any lengths to dispel anything that goes against this norm. Competition – not just limited to areas of study or work seems to be the driving force. We pride ourselves on family togetherness but those values increasingly seem to be eroded. This piece isn’t being written to connote the death of a tradition but rather to suggest that future generations have to learn to live with it.