The pics becoming viral of a ‘Captain Cool’ MS Dhoni merrily playing with his little daughter, while the ‘CSK’ team was busy celebrating their IPL victory, has now earned him the sobriquet ‘Daddy Cool’ and more fans, who are looking at the human side of a battle-scattered veteran of historic wins !

Are young men of today more committed, sincere and demonstrative as caring Dads compared to us, who have grown ups as children and to our own  fathers and their fathers of that Victorian era when the well-accepted generation gap existed where one spoke to them only when spoken to ?! What appears is a connect getting established and the small family size is helping.

The young Dads of the 60s were working men ( with fewer working mothers) with large families and live-in parents. Life’s daily struggle often made them exhausted, underpaid and frustrated, worrying about their meager salaries and keeping quiet about their own anxieties so that the rest of the family would have a better life.

Speaking of my Dad, I now realize that despite his love, becoming friends was not usual in those days, but he passed on to us through his exemplary, simple life-style, many of life’s beautiful pursuits like music, literature, films and love for sports and most importantly, being a ‘good human being’ was the lesson he inculcated in all of us.

With time, demographic changes, rapid technology, healthcare, living standards, education system and life-styles have seen huge transformation. But ‘Dads’ who were considered a source of inspiration and fountain of knowledge in the 80’s are now becoming old-style and uncool with their archaic technical skills and old-world values. Parents were the mentors two decades back but not any longer, instead their protective cover is a burden and well-meaning advice now seem like impractical homilies which don’t suit the generation which values its freedom more than its responsibilities.

Whatever the age and position, Dads (and Moms) in general, love unconditionally but often do not allow children to understand them well enough to make sense of their actions. Sometimes they make the mistake of attaching an emotional price tag to everything, meaning that progeny’s success is their success, progeny’s failure is their failure – trying to be the judge of what’s right and wrong because Dad ( and Mom) know what’s best. No longer is that going to work with the youth of today.

Researchers think that adults now pay too much attention to their children at the expense of themselves. Dads (Parents) defer their pleasure trips, close off interests or avenues that they formerly pursued that made them fuller and more interesting people. Being totally focused on the children makes them lose their identities, lowers self-esteem when discarded by them later, struggling to rediscover what’s left as the ‘nest is empty’.

Once upon a time ( not very long ago ) life for a college student was, to use an old cliché, simple to the point of being mundane. For some (like me) real-time started with a 10^th Board exam. of HS or High School ( for some others, Board of SC or Senior Cambridge ) to be followed by 12^th Board of Intermediate Exams. Those from SC were considered more anglicised and suave – would somehow pass in Hindi while the High School types, being not-so-cool, less likely to score highly in English for strangely obvious reasons, but often faring better in maths and science. But no-one,not even the best, could dream getting anywhere near 90%!

Things would eventually level after college pass-out into the big bad world of competitions comprising basically of two streams – engineering and medical (few even applied to armed forces) while many opted for graduation and post-graduation en-route to appearing for the All-India IAS, Railways, Income Tax, other Allieds or the SBI and PSU banks. Yet another set (financially solid !) moved to the US haven for higher studies.

When one saw/read that Mark Zuckerberg got his degree from Harvard Univ. more than a decade after he’d dropped out to pursue his vision of FB, one reflects that at the end of the day (of professional life), how much do academic results and marks count ! Many of success stories I know are of back-benchers in school, some even notorious pranksters !

Cut to the present and amazingly so many students get 90+% in their board exams and then high percentages result in high cut-offs to get admission in colleges, thereby de-motivating those who could not score well or who score even 80+% marks ( really fabulous in our time !). Should percentage be the only criteria for admissions ? Life is far much more than percentage and degrees but try telling that to eager, ambitious parents and the authorities, in a hugely competitive dog-eat-dog world.

The counter-argument is – this generation is far smarter and earns the high scores through smart prep and professional counseling. Multiple choice answers and objective type tests also enable very high scoring with ‘a little bit of luck’ of-course (like getting the right questions ! )

But is learning and imparting knowledge about success by scoring high – in the good old days, it was all about conceptual clarity and getting the ‘fundas’ right and also about the right values. Many from the old school might even sing sadly today “ Koi Lauta De Mere Bite Hue Din ….”

 

There are times when some words (or phrases) get stuck to your memory – either from a book, a film or even a random expression from a lay person ! For movie and lit buffs this can happen often, for writers do come up with lines, which in context appear path-breaking and pithy but taken outside,  compel reflection on the larger meaning that can be attributable to them.

A phrase that recently quite caught my imagination were the intriguing lines – “..from somewhere between nowhere and goodbye” as said by the wise, down and out prize fighter, describing the main protagonist of the movie, whose past was made up of dereliction and deprivation of life’s basic needs (from the 2004 Oscar winner, film-drama ‘Million Dollar Baby’). But was it more of a metaphor than an expression ?

Taken in a larger context, what do such words signify ? It can be the story of those who fight an identity crises (being nowhere), struggling to find a new one for a better tomorrow, perilously jumping off beaten paths ( goodbye ).

Many people living ordinary lives, working in firms and offices, feel they are not in a good position in life, not really heading anywhere and they know given half a chance, they’d love to say good-bye to all of it.What a gutted feeling and what it does is to keep away positivity and happiness at arm’s length.

On another level, aren’t we all (specially those battling mid-life crises and onset of old age) hanging between the imagery and physicality of beauty and the realization that it’s time to say goodbye to the impetuousness of youth and its trappings , yet fight the perennial struggle to remain somewhere in-between !

All of that and am still wondering – that being somewhere can still be better than being nowhere (and with no meaning for existence) and it’s hard but better to say goodbye to those things and people, that time and life have decided for us.

As an exuberant youth in the 1970s, I was very fascinated with the vroom, zoom and ‘dhoom’ speed at which some my friends with more machismo and muscle could handle motorcycles with one famous brand appropriately called ‘Bullet’ !  In fact the scooters (and scootis) that we softer guys used, were a very poor cousin to these mean machines and the then heroes could manage all their filmy stunts and romance heroines equipped with those shiny symbols of power. Those cool dude with wheels, people would rave !

Cut to 2018 – in Mumbai’s horrendous traffic with innumerable autos, cars, buses, vans and trucks on roads with world-famed pot-holes (as in all major cities), we have the indefatigable bikers ( motorcycles are known as bikes by today’s youngsters ) all over to add to the general mayhem – with their foot on the gas, swerving, weaving, lane cutting, overtaking from the left and grazing the poor vehicles and motor cars which happen to be in their way – all done with alacrity and with the effrontery and bravado worthy of a crown prince ! But now, all this is so scary and hair-raising !

To look at the brighter side – bikers today almost always wear helmets ( ever vigilant cops make them pay heavily otherwise) and with backpacks, are well protected in case of unfortunate mishaps. However, not only does this make them oblivious to others on the road ( I’ve often driving the car, tried many types of preventive actions through hand signals to them with no effect!) but with such great acceleration, there are always hazards out of the biker’s control, like bad weather, gravel or sand, potholes, and bad drivers and yes, pedestrians walking on roads with mobiles on their ears !

Young bikers with lady pillion riders tend to become more adventurous to ‘show-off’ their driving skills and expose them and others to risk. Knowing and staying within your limits can help keep you safe and choosing a bike that’s within your skill level can lessen the chances of a needless accident.

As a senior citizen and also regular car owner-driver, I am in a comfort zone that both my sons are not into bikes but I can easily understand that macho feeling of speed and power that attracts young to mo-bikes apart from their being far more affordable than cars.  Someone had once said ‘.. riding a motorcycle is one of the most glorious and romantic activities I have ever come across’ – so true, but I would recommend, if it could be approached with a proper mindset and not as the race of life !

In Satyajit Ray’s iconic Bengali film ‘Pratidwandi’, a friend asks the protagonist why he doesn’t clear job interviews, though having such good intellect. He replies sardonically ‘ Who wants intellect ?!’ One of the great paradoxes today is that while there is no dearth of talent but only few eventually make it to the pinnacle of success and get the recognition they deserve, leaving room for plenty of mediocrity at the top ! The modern jargon exhorts  ‘ working smart’ is the way forward never mind the art and craft.

If the parable of ‘hard work is the only way to succeed’ is true why then do only a handful actually realise their full potential (professionally or in chosen fields ) despite being talented and industrious. It’s probably not just the intense competition that disfavours them but how to compete and edge out others in the race that is the crux. A bigger issue remains that many are not aware of their forte or strength areas which need to be nurtured

For that matter are the  employers really looking for talent (with originality and creative thinking) or identities matching the boxes of selection process !  There’s this familiar case of Mr. Competent (C) and Mr. Slick-smart (S) – both started out as freshmen with ‘C’ showing greater proficiency, very quick-on-the-uptake and so work-obsessed that lunch breaks would be foregone. ‘S’ shrewdly focused on that side of the bread which had butter, made sure of being at the right place at the right time, making the right noises suavely to the right people. At the end of their careers, C had been able to manage just three promotions in 30 years (and accumulated huge working knowledge) while ‘S’ became the darling of those who mattered and made it to the top.

This appears to be happening in all spheres of work, govt. services, banks, private sector firms, corporates and even the creative fields.

Also, one of the problems that most talented people face is pride in their skills which demand recognition rather than to seek it. Operational capability and good contributions failing to get appreciated is a common occurrence in organisations where individuals matter only if they represent a part of management which must project its own image rather than those of its team. The talented are more focussed on honing their skills and lose out on self-promotion. Those less talented are more adept at it !

Experience has shown that prestigious projects are mooted to enhance owner’s image – however, that’s where the ownership ends ! Implementation, results, outcomes is the hard task of the appointed ground-staff, shortfalls in targets even if justified, are not tolerated and accountability fixed on staff as per guidelines. Success and glory of the project, on the other hand, is credited to the foresight, vision and sagacity of the makers – in some cases forming part of their best-seller memoirs too !

While visiting overseas destinations as ebullient tourists on an overkill, many of us exhibit myriad unenviable characteristics – speaking in native language on a high pitch, gesticulating, lugging bulky bags, shoving and trying to grab the best seats on the coach ! But the most prolific of all is the propensity to capture on camera or video-graph all conceivable objects, characters and scenes that we come across.

During our 2015 Europe trip, the tour guide said to us resignedly ‘.to catch every scene on camera is futile, you will stop looking – why not savour all that you can see in your memory forever’ ! Despite these admonitions, all continued clicking happily ever after and returned back with few memorable moments locked inside us and loads and loads of pics consigned to digital space which may never be visited again. Be that as it may, why do people love taking photographs incessantly, apart from the sheer fun of shoot-and-click handsets ? Because, visuals create far greater impact than any other medium.

As an keen photographer with no real knowledge of photography, I am convinced that this too is an art to be perfected, since a photograph or a series of them, has the ability to convey stories to those that view them reflecting the psyche and rhythm of the story-teller. Pictures of rock-stars, pop-artists, racers and soccer league champs will adorn the walls of the impetuous youth, taking rare photos of musicians and artists interest music lovers, while nature enthusiasts can spend hours on photographs of nature and wild life in its many splendoured forms ! Photos tell a lot about what makes a person tick.

Pictures artistically taken have the ability to convey emotion, mood, narrative, ideas and messages, all of which are important elements of story telling. For the uninitiated, the best way to prepare a travelogue is through pictorial depiction that has the flow of an exciting journey. As the telecasting and broadcasting of major events, matches and speeches become ‘viral’ the pictures taken on the occasion also get preserved for posterity. Then we have the ‘Big Fat Indian Weddings’ which invoke countless sessions of the pair, family and friends with professional photographers all of which form an enormously costly, beautifully bound book like a historical document for the archives !

Even for the average fun-loving amateurs, why are photos so important that they need to be clicked on every occasion. A vital necessity comes from the social media where the life’s latest happenings, dresses, styles and events of any Shyam, Dinu or Hari can be posted with pics with same flair as Ranvir, Ranbeer or Raj Kumar (Rao not Hirani !).

However, aside from the much-debated privacy issue, it’s the ‘problem of plenty’ with photographs that arises – what to do with the tons of them ? Yes, the digital means are fine, but they too require meticulous dating, classification and categorization and must find place in various forms of storage. However, what cannot be done must be deleted !

As for me, I follow the classical style of 5×7 glossy prints which are preserved in albums of all sizes. All this is cumbersome, but holding an old picture in my hand, brings back many memories, stories and faces, just the way they were, many, many summers ago !

 

 

 

Some time back, when a leading media chief suavely entered in discourse on many matters of national importance with an enigmatic leader of stature, it was followed with great interest on prime time. However, apart from the expected political umbrage yet correctness of the talks, one thing looked common between the two celebrities – both appeared a bit like the helpless parents of today !

Here was the visibly relaxed Soniaji stating candidly ‘I try not to volunteer advice to them, do you ?’ to which media baron, Aroon Purie seemed to lament ‘my children don’t listen to me’ (partly in jest, maybe) while the audience did LOL ! The irony remains, be it leaders in the fields of politics, media, business, sports etc or the struggling service class, all need to brush up on communication skills when it comes to their own grown up children. (the issue of dealing with teenage kids is beyond the realm of this writer ! )

Professionals teaching different techniques and impact of good speaking styles, often fail miserably at home resulting in indefinite family deadlocks ! What are parents, otherwise intelligent beings of substance (outside home), not doing right and mostly getting the wrong end of the stick ?

For one, it’s probably that they’re talking to them as their closest relatives, always knowing what’s best and wishing them to be like them. Keeping the relationship aside, talking one to one like adults, starting as equals may work. Add to this, a lot of quality listening and unlearning your past glory about what sacrifices you made and how wonderfully you brought them up.  Like all others, grown-ups need backing from parents for the decisions they’ve made and appreciation for efforts but without major interventions. The unsaid message remains – spare the advice, we’ll ask for it if needed !

One father/parent (and celebrity ) who measures up to these high standards is the great Prakash Padukone, ex-badminton champion and now coach. His renowned daughter and international actress, Deepika Padukone, recently called him ‘The Best Dad’, for his humility and many qualities ! At least let’s try and become brighter, meaning more ‘Prakash’ all around !