Pass the dal. Both of you, sit. Phones face-down, just tonight.
We have had this argument at this table so many times that the table must be tired of us. Tonight I am not going to win it. Tonight I want to say something I should have said earlier –
My beloved kids, before I start, allow me to admit something that your generation didn’t do to itself; but us! As soon as you came into this world, we sanitized everything except our own anxieties. Before we could develop patience, we purchased bottle warmers. We read books on how to be a parent written by people who probably haven’t raised a kid in their life. Before you had even fallen down and injured your knees, we padded them. Before you had felt any emotion in your body, we muffled your expressions. Before you started imagining your future, we began making plans for it. Never have you sharpened a pencil with a sharp knife. Never have you memorized ten phone numbers just in case your battery runs out. Never have you experienced the unique kind of fear of sitting by a phone line at seven o’clock, waiting for a call.
We wanted to do parenting better than our fathers. They believed that love will make kids soft. We believed that love could make up for the lack of discipline. Both of us were wrong. We paved your way of life and got upset when your feet could not stand tough situations.
You ask questions. Good ones. Crucial ones. Questions which scare professors, embarrass bosses, make families look for a way out of the conversation, and shut down entire WhatsApp groups of families. You will not accept “Because I said so”. And you shouldn’t. No civilization would develop without asking at least one kid question. But somewhere along the way from the act of questioning to the moment of assurance, we have lost something crucial. Humility. You bring conclusions well before the start of any conversation. You google things before finishing a complete sentence from someone. You question people’s life experience with statistics. You cut someone’s story off with an internet source. You trust a stranger with a ring light more than your grandfather with seven decades of experience. That is not development. It is simply poor source evaluation.
Your generation is labelled as a rebellious one. I would like to challenge this description of your generation. Your generation is not rebelling but auditing. Everything, every institution, every tradition that has been passed down, every casual sentence made at a dinner table, every relationship that was never chosen by you. All of this undergoes scrutiny from you. This may be justified since after all, we taught you critical thinking and assumed that you would use it only in examination rooms.
People always ask me why I never take you to family gatherings such as weddings and so on. The answer is pretty easy to give. You ask tough questions. Why is everyone praying for the bride to adapt? Why is the domestic help having their meal alone in the kitchen? Why is Uncle delivering a sermon on ethics after his third drink? Your presence changes the whole atmosphere. Someone sneezes. Someone diverts the topic. Someone wonders what would be for dessert. Once I thought it was you embarrassing me. I have now realized my error. It wasn’t you who embarrassed me; it was our traditions.
However, may I just make one more request of you? Do not mix ignorance with maturity. Wrinkles aren’t wounds to be healed. Grey hair isn’t out-of-date programming. Sometimes an old man says the same thing over again because he has forgotten that he has said it before. Sometimes it is all that he has left of the people that he once knew. So listen to him anyway. Because there will come a day when you realize that your most precious memories are far more common than your most cherished opinions.
Respect is an odd kind of currency. It must never be forced. But respect cannot be allowed to fade away either. Respecting your elders does not mean that you have to agree with them. It means that you recognize the fact that they have crossed rivers that you run across without even glancing sideways.
You believe that everything can be optimized. The concept of friendship doesn’t include any kind of upgrades. You can’t switch off your family forever. Forgiveness has one of the worst user interfaces there is. But still it works.
We have often been accused by you of leaving behind a wrecked planet. We have polluted our rivers. We have gambled our future with the eyes closed in the fine print. Success was about having things for us. We have gifted you a diseased planet and the impudence to term it as heritage. An unqualified apology is all that we owe you.
But then again, let me remind you of something else too. Your doubt in us should not be mistaken for our wisdom. It needs to be overcome by you. Don’t block people. Try challenging them. Don’t turn your rage into anything permanent. Just because you perform showmanship doesn’t mean you are a brave person.
After I am long gone, don’t bother worrying whether I was right as often as I might claim. That’s not the truth – that’s exactly the opposite of the truth. All you need to know is that I have always been one who would change his mind. One who would always have the decency to say sorry, if necessary. One who has known how to mock himself even before he knew how to mock others. And no matter what the worst could happen to me, I would always believe that nothing was left to me but laughter.
Argue against me. Confront me. Disprove my theories until I surrender. But don’t harden your heart just to win every battle. Societies won’t fail because of the revolts of their children. Societies will fail because they will stop listening to their children.
In years to come, you will not remember who emerged victorious in today’s debate. Perhaps you will not even recall what the dispute was about. However, you will remember the aroma of the dal, the person who took another roti from across the table, and the laughter that came in at the end of exhausting all the viewpoints.
(Rahul Verma is the father of two Gen Z children and the founder of Uday Foundation and NKB Divine Meditation Foundation)