JAMMED CLOCKS !!!!!

My recent visit to North America enabled me reach out to a large congregation of women from a particular part of India. And what did I see? I saw them in a time warp. In fact I felt many of them had actually slid back. Instead of moving over from Indian Standard Time (IST) to Eastern Time (ET) they were in Indian Static Time. (ISTaT).  The ‘back home problems’, which I had professionally seen, (which many women did/do face in the/at part of India) appeared to have aggravated here. And they literally had no fall back system.

The issues I encountered were too many. Many walked up to me to tell me how they had to overcome broken marriages for they had burnt their bridges. They were literally cheated into marriages only to be domesticated or concubined! Demands for dowry continued unabated with related domestic violence, topped by alcoholic behaviors.

To these have got added, and which did not exist in India for these women and parents is now their adolescent children confronting them with outside influence. Youngsters have lost their identity. They really do not know where they belong. All they want is to be free to make their right and wrong choices. Parents have lost control. In fact they are afraid to confront them lest they walk out. The conflict is highest with culturally protective mothers. Many of them do not know how to handle this defiance. I was informed that very many of them are heavily dependent on depressants prescribed by pharmaceutically controlled medical industry. Beyond their middle age there is nothing left for them to remain busy except perhaps either to attend or organize alcohol drenched birthday parties of their grand children or keep moving to bigger houses only to keep up with the joneses.

I ran into a newspaper report in which a police officer of Indian origin was quoted saying: ‘Dialogue and community involvement is a must to save youth. Parents need to communicate with their children if they want to prevent them from getting involved in criminal activities. Parents of young teens now need to realize that they have to discuss these issues with them-not force their will on their children, because you get the backlash…. In essence, what I believe is that our young people do not have an identity anymore’.

The news also was talking of migrant (Indian) youth criminal gangs and problems of drug addiction. An advertised de-addiction center was saying that services were available in English, Hindi,

And-------.For me it was a worrisome trip.

The onus of such scenarios I wondered had to be on the fathers and mothers in particular and the community at large. Along with fun and frolic what perhaps did not get adequate share was the real education on ‘values of life’ also called ‘the Art of Living.’ And in this there is no quick fix. It has to be role modeled.

Parents and the Community leaders need to lead the way. And I did see some signs of it. The debate has begun, meanwhile a lot has been lost.