Little Nipun was reading jokes from a magazine. "One friend asked another: `Why are you sitting so downcast today?" he read. "I happened to be walking behind a girl," the friend replied. "She called a policeman who gave me a severe admonition!" "Oh that's nothing," answered the other. "I had a similar experience and the result was worse. The girl called her father and he immediately sent for a Pandit!" He laughed. I asked him what "calling a Pandit" implied. "I don't know," he fumbled, then added, "For marriage?"That may be an indicator of the rising IQ of the new generation. But I immediately recalled how my friend, Mr Varma, had drawn attention to the other (ethical) "Q".
"The other day I was at a general store in our neighbourhood to buy tooth-paste," he said. "My granddaughter -- a child in the 4th standard -- was with me. There came a gentleman with a boy of around the same age. "What a sexy girl!", the boy told his father, pointing to my grand-daughter. The father guffawed. I was embarrassed and
perplexed and couldn't decide how to react. As I turned towards the gentleman and found him looking at me with an amused smile, I could only mutter: "He is your boy?"
"Yes," he replied enthusiastically, "and a very intelligent boy too". "Yes, of course," I responded with unconcealed sarcasm.
Noticing the reserve in my eyes, the father felt impelled to convince me: "You see, he knows the names of all the heroes and heroines and..."
"Oh, does he?", I said and, turning to the boy, asked, "Do you know anything about Jijabai or Lakshmibai?"
"No," he answered, nonplussed,, "I don't think there is a heroine of this name..." and turned to his father for moral support. Mr Varma might have asked him about Kasturba. Not one of these names would have rung a bell because none had the flavour of "heroism".
"Meanwhile," continued Mr Varma, "a few other people had come to the shop. Somebody mentioned that we had the movies to thank for this which have invaded our homes."
"Yes, cinema was there when we were young
and we too looked upon it as recreation. So did the earlier generation, but it was nothing like this.
"Once my wife and I were tempted to go to the movies -- just the two of us -- rather furtively. The lights had been switched off when we entered. Imagine our consternation when, as soon as we had settled down in our seats, we noticed, a couple of rows in the front, my parents."
"We conferred in whispers about how to escape. Should we slip out and return home? Should we sit through the film like tame, awestruck children? We decided to stay on but to leave a few minutes before the lights were switched on at the end. It was a few days later that Babuji said in a casual tone to my mother, but within my hearing, `Tilak is going to the pictures rather too often these days!' I was discreet enough not to answer that he was in the same boat..."
Those were the days when going to the movies was a family event calling for a lot of preparation. Now it is not as much that we go to them as that they gate-crash into
our homes, with no insulation on hand for impressionable kids. When I heard our own Nipun repeating the other day the vulgar line from some film: "Jumma hai Jumma, De De Chumma," and, noting how he resists the idiot-box being switched off to shut out the horrible song-and- dance sequences, I wondered if we were not rushing headlong into a state which invited the following comment:
"American civilisation cannot survive with 12-year-olds having babies, 15-year-olds shooting one another, 17-year-olds dying of AIDS and 18-year-olds graduating with diplomas they cannot read..."
Newt Gingrich, Time magazine, December 25, 1995.
Is that a future worth looking forward to?
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
