During my childhood I would often count the number of days remaining for my vacation to start. The minute the big day comes I would be all geared up and be ready to visit my grandparents. It’s just because every day I spend with them would be very precious, The special treatment that I would get from them, Grandma feeding me food with her own hands and telling me some great bedtime stories, Grandpa buying me lots of chocolates, gifts and taking me to different places. I would not even waste a single second and would make sure that I enjoy every second.
Now after reaching my 20’s, when I visit my grandparents thing have slightly been changed. They have grown older and it felt like they have lost interest in things. But the conversation that I have with them has been something that has slightly changed the perspective of how I view things.
My grandma usually doesn’t talk much, all she says to me is “Are you hungry or do u still want some more food?”. But on one strange day she told me about her childhood and how she got married when she was very young. By saying that she made me realize something important that how important is education for an individual to be independent and not to be a burden for others. She says that the more educated you are, the more independent you will be. In way she is right because education is something that is necessary for a person to boost his self-esteem and confidence, the two most necessary ingredients for being independent.
My grandpa is actually the man whom I adore a lot because he has quality that I personally lack a lot. He tries his best to live his day to the fullest without really thinking about the future outcomes. Some might think that it’s a very foolish act but I personally feel that it’s the key for his happiness. I have very long conversations with him about his childhood, his adulthood, his middle-aged years and so on. He tells me his stories in small episodes. He says about all the Hollywood and Bollywood movies he saw in his young years. For me to watch a movie not in my native language would require a subtitle but he says there were no subtitles back in those days yet the theaters screening other language movies would be houseful. He says it’s not necessary for us to know a particular language to understand a movie, All you need is to understand the rhythm of the movie, observe the scene very carefully, the expressions given by the actors on screen, the environment the scene is setup in, that is all is required to understand the movie. He is right though, but that requires complete involvement by us with the movie. He says that in his prime the running time the movie would be usually more than 3 hours and today’s generation doesn’t have the patience to watch movie for even 2 hours. There are many distractions for you people, he said, and I completely agree, we have the tendency to check WhatsApp messages and attend while watching a movie, he thinks that is a slight disrespect that we show to the art form.
Whenever I show him any new gadget that I purchase, the first question that he would ask me is, “Will this be useful to you in anyway?” , He has a philosophy that human’s need for things is the biggest void that can never be filled. Simple way explaining would be, A person who wants to succeed in his life would have set a minimum threshold for his success rate but maximum amount of success rate for the person is undefined. He says that in his days people had minimum access to the technologies, very less money. But nowadays everyone is having access to everything and people have increased their needs. Whenever the needs of an individual are increased, the chances of him/her becoming desperate increases which results in chaos. It’s just like the dialogue that comes in the song “Sadda Haq” from “Rockstar”, “You know, many years ago, there used to be a forest. A dense, terrifying forest. Then a city was built here, clean houses, straight roads, everything began to happen in order. But the day the forest was cut, that day a flock of birds flew away from here forever.. never to come back. I am looking for those birds, has anyone seen them? Has anyone??”, I always assume that the flock of birds mentioned in the dialogue as the peace of mind and innocence that people had back in those days. Today everyone has become very desperate to succeed in their lives which has not only made us lose our peace of mind but also the innocence we had has gone forever. The term I would like to use to refer this situation is “The Organised Chaos”.
At the end of our discussion he made me realize that, we have to first accept myself and the situation I am in and try my best to be satisfied and happy to with whatever I have with me.
