The Generation Gap

Every time an old song plays on TV, my Dad will be ready with the same monologue that has been echoing in my house since time immemorial. He starts off with, "What a great song! Those days..." and he closes his eyes as though he's going into a state of semi-enlightenment and continues,"Those were the days, golden days..I watched this movie in Shivaji theatre. It was so moving, so good. See Sharmila Tagore, She looks so beautiful". My eyes were transfixed on the beehive. Did you just ask "What Beehive?" then, you must be from my father's generation. Please ignore my comment.

Then he gives a break till the song is over and now comes the much awaited salvo, "These days, I don't know what songs they come up with. They are absolutely meaningless". He changes the channel and he stops at MTV, scrutinises the songs, looks sadly at us like we are some unfortunate urchins starved of the wonderful culture that his generation had.

Every generation is the same I guess. I'm sure when the TV made its first appearance on the hall table, my grandmother would have looked at it, fretted and disgustingly told my dad that listening to the the radio was a lost art. It was something his generation would never understand, even though reception in the radio was a result of a thousand agile karate chops sensible enough not to break it, but make it play. It was a skill, something that my father's generation would never understand.

This tradition can be traced back to early men, I guess. The earlier men would have sulked at the sight of a wheel. They would have gasped, "gujumb gujumb gujumba" which roughly translates into, "Oh my god! Do we now have to rely on this nonsensical shapeless things for god knows what! By the way, why was this invented in the first place? Shoes ought to have come before this. These bare feet, killing me, I tell you!"

Who knows apes would have frowned at the "missing link character" who was suddenly developing something that centuries later was called a backbone. "Tch tch, see how these youngsters act, trying to stand up with their front limbs, no respect at all!". Imagine if that hadn't happened, I would have been on some tree plucking berries and my ears alternatively. Thank god for the missing link! I can't imagine how the granny apes would have reacted to the opposable thumb. Lets not go there.

I don't think any generation will be free of this curse. Every day I get a mail saying you are a 90's kid if you watched Shaktimaan, if you read Chacha chowdary, if you played lagori, if you pooped on the road, and other convoluted cornucopia of things. What if you haven't? I know many people who have the gall to ask if Chacha chowdary is my actual chacha! But they are 90's kids! I know their birthdays.

So today I want to make a resolution to never comment on my next generation, no matter how much they rot in facebook, live their lives out of potato chip packets, the amount of pocket money they get that equals my monthly salary, the way they strut in front of cafes in skimpy clothes, the unfortunate souls who'll never know what a single screen theatre would look like, who may think that Shaktimaan is a character from Ramayan which is a bloody gaming extravaganza like counter-strike, I mean if they know counterstrike that is.

Wait! Did I just break my resolution?

Ah well!