The society we live in today appears to inspire a lot of flying. Most people you come across are flying in or out, flying with someone for a while, flying towards new experiences, hunting for what others don’t have, flying away from relationships, binding, commitment since we must be industrious, work hard and make more, ASAP!
Industrious we are, ever on the alert, furtively looking for something better. The same routine and regimen to be followed day after day till something unprogrammed happens around us. Our parents were wired to produce us, feed us, keep us warm and protect us from predators until we could fly away. Part of a cabal yet must fend for our self. Destined to exactly repeat the same process with the same milestones that our prev-gen (parents) executed as a Gant chart programmed by the ecosystem – Consumerism – we need to survive in, and drop dead somewhere, sometime, un-noticed by the next-gen and most in the community we thought we belonged to.
Are we Sparrows?
Surely not, we are humans, the most evolved living product, Nature Inc. has developed and launched with NI (Natural Intelligence) till date! Time spent with the family is what built our NI but as we slid into our adult lives, all we got to feed upon is Data, AI, virtual connects and OTT on LCD screens. AI rules supreme while NI sulks in a corner not in use anymore to think about our purpose of life for the next five or ten years.
We were blessed with the ability to think, set goals or objectives in life, plan and act driven by such objectives. We grow up with values, ethics, sense of duties and responsibilities unique to only our species in the living world. We are normally more concerned about our relatives and grow up over multiple sparrow lifetimes with all of that. Yet…
Why do most humans do what most humans do – like sparrows?
Why do they fly away never to return to the nests they grew up in – like sparrows?
Why do the ones left behind make choices like most left behind – like sparrows?
Why do the ones left behind hunt for a ghetto where a few like-minded, like-status and like-behaving sparrows can spend the rest of their days, huddled together, wallowing in the sameness of life, waiting for one of them to sputter off in a corner while waiting for their own time to be over. The quality of the ghetto does vary depending upon the per capita income these sparrows made over the last forty years.
The human was not living a life of a sparrow till they could live off the land they were born in. Generations lie consecrated around the same stretch of land where their ancestors first discovered agriculture as a provider for life. Indian Family Life as we knew was largely governed by the philosophy and wisdom passed over generations through oral not virtual communication. We learnt about the four Stages or Ashrams (Fig. 1) of life and know that each stage has an end, leading to our death. We learnt all that from the narratives shared by our grandparents and parents. And that imbibed in us the values, emotions, and a sense of identity about our family, history, and even nationality. Our adult identities were built upon the foundation nurtured by our prev-gens during our Bhramacharya Ashram. (*The Four Stages of Indian Family Life: interpretation given at the end of this article)
Fig. 1: The Sigmoid Curve – Four Ashrams – of Life
Indian families till the early nineties were mostly about three generations, the grandparents, parents and their children living together. The parents going through their Grihastha Ashram with their next-gen being built up in their Bhramacharya Ashram under the shade of their grandparents chugging along in their Vanaprastha Ashram. It was similar in the west too – without the Indian nomenclature – before industrialization hit them a few hundred years back.
Family life in Europe got disrupted in the 19th century as Industrialization and capitalism grew its roots (The US started from the debris of a disrupted family life). Western Europe adjusted to this disruption over a couple of generations, when the young ones left their parents’ nest to apprentice or study for vocation and jobs away (within a few hundred Kms) from where they grew up as kids. Economic independence made it possible to live a young life with abandon and hard labor in factories and the concept of a unit family (me, my spouse and children) just happened. As industrialization spread into every nook and cranny of western Europe the next-gens could find gainful jobs even in the same town or city where their prev-gen lived. But, having tasted independence with their unit families, they stayed in separate homes, a block or a street away from their prev-gen. European family life did get disrupted by industrialization but through a long period of over 200 years.
We Indians didn’t have the luxury of getting attenuated to family life disruption over generations since we leapfrogged industrialization and slipped into a Services driven society over hardly 30 years.
Over the last decade or two, few of the bigger cities have even seen pockets of a Knowledge Society emerge. For those who were there at the right time and place, learning, exposure to a global market and competence lifted them into the upper middle class, for some even an elitist lifestyle over a very short period. These pockets of excellence and prosperity much above the median is what makes the top 5% of Indians own over 60% of the national wealth.
Yet, most well-off families are struggling to find peace with what they have achieved. A younger friend of mine (in early 50s) interested in many things other than his profession (he heads the Indian subsidiary of an American IT Services company) went through a Script Writing course and shared the storyline of a script he recently completed.
“A retired couple with their two daughters (happily married happily) living in the US go for a walk every day. They take care of themselves quite well having built their home in a gated community with their savings from their work-life. In fact, the house is a bit large for just two people, but the daughters and their family do visit once a year to light up the entire house and fill it with joyous sounds that go silent as they return to their work-lives, 15 thousand Kms away.
Age has started to take some toll. The mother has developed early signs of osteoarthritis and the father was cautioned about a few peaks in his ECG during the last annual medical check-up. Yes, they are adequately insured against hospitalization costs and live amongst many others whose sons and daughters have flown away in search of work and a life of better fulfilment.
One day during their walk back home, the lady slips over an inclined cobblestone, falls hurting her head and lower back. A week later, her daughters have flown in. She is yet to gain consciousness and they are discussing future options with their father and a few relatives. ‘Assisted living’ is what the father agrees could be the best option as the mother gains consciousness and revolts against such an option. Daughters offer to take care of their parents in US where their work/ life is apparently entrenched but the parents cannot see themselves having a life in a completely foreign society including becoming a burden on their own daughters and family.
The father assures all that he will take care of the mother and daughters grudgingly trudge away to the airport to go back to their life that they had chosen (really?) or were forced to get into.
Three months later: Husband does not turn up like every day in the morning at his wife’s bedside. The lady, by now with a paralyzed lower half somehow manages to raise her upper torso to peep into the other room and sees her husband’s feet sticking out by the side of his bed. She calls 108 – neighbors accompany the ambulance to the hospital with the husband. He is declared dead of a heart attack.”
Pathetic but quite close to reality for those older sparrows who worked hard to live well and long without realizing that all they could be left with is a nest (even if well foliaged) blessed with solitude and a blanket of silence. Kartavya and Dayitwa (Duty and Responsibility) delivered…Now what? You are not a sparrow. You don’t conk off with your Grihastha Ashram done!
Where is Vanaprastha gone, the 3rd stage of Indian family life? Is our life only about the Grihastha Ashram? If so, why do we invest in health and a long life? Wealth should be enough to live a life like most of the capitalistic society apparently believes in.
Vanaprastha was the wonderful stage of life, where the next-gen learns to practice its Grihastha with their prev-gen available for support or guidance – without interfering into their Grihastha lives – and help bring up the grand-gen (grandchildren) in symbiotic symphony. The Vanaprashtha delivery model as practiced in the past did not envisage the next-gen and your grand-gen thousands of Kms away with sporadic virtual contact and a week or two of holidaying together.
Essential Caveat: during holidaying, you must have fun, not discuss anything serious. It is Reel life not the Real life. You cannot stack up couple of decades of family life into a few video calls or some time spent in a resort near the hills or the sea.
The thought that came to my mind after listening to the story line from my budding script-writer friend made me make a request to him.
“Debo, can you try writing a sequel to your story? The sequel should go into the lives of the daughters or the next-gen. What goes through their minds and lives as they see their prev-gen peter out in one way or another. How they run their trajectory of life, what options they choose, what narratives they share with their next-gen (baby sparrows)”
I could see surprise on his face initially, followed by that wonderful smile brimming with empathy. Debo, the storyteller’s eyes started to glisten as his mind picked up speed and raced around the bends and bumps of all that sequel could cover, narrate and influence – both the next & prev-gens with. He probably thought about his own two daughters with one ready to fly away any day.
Maybe, we lose sight of the Purpose for the life we build. At every stage of our life – particularly as we make choices at different inflection points of our Grihastha Ashram, the longest and busiest stage of life – we could have asked ourselves, what is the Purpose we are working hard for?
Perhaps, our next-gen or the grand-gen will find the answers we did not or could not!
*The Four Stages of Indian Family Life
Bhramacharya Ashram: The sigmoid curve of life begins with this 1st Stage, where you need (though you may not) to learn all that you require to become a capable adult.
a. Traditionally, this learning used to seep in while living with a Guru for years.
b. The Guru would teach as well as train his disciples in explicit knowledge while his leadership behavior (the choices he makes in his own life) influence the disciples to absorb tacit knowledge.
c. Later, this responsibility fell upon the grandparents, parents, and teachers.
Grihastha Ashram: Capable adulthood was supposed to be about the ability (skills, knowledge, strength, character, etc.) to provide for your family and fulfil your Dayitwa (responsibility) and Kartavya (duties).
a. This capability qualified us to graduate into the Grihastha Ashram, the 2nd , longest and the most happening Stage of adult life.
b. This is when we are required to create assets, build our own family, and gain knowledge about the world we live in through experiences.
c. The Grihastha Ashram continues till your next-gen become capable adults and start their own Grihashta (family).
Vanaprastha Ashram: Running your Grihastha and fulfilling your dayitwa and kartavya over decades is expected to have matured you enough to embrace this 3rd Stage.
a. You make yourself available to your next-gen for advice or coaching when they seek your guidance but never interfere in their Grihastha lives; and thus, your next-gen learns to bear responsibility for the choices they make.
b. The wisdom from the famous shloka from Gita, ‘Karmanye Vadikaraste Ma Faleshu Kadachana…(It is your Kartavya – responsibility – to perform your duty – Dayitwa – not driven by the results – fal – it may create)’ gets practiced only when this stage is lived to the letter by both the prev-gen and the next-gen leading a life together and learning from its practice*.
Sanyas Ashram: The 4th Stage; Finally, as you age and near the biological end of your life, you slip more and more into seclusion and prepare for death. Your next-gens observe, learn about and accept death as a natural end of life.
amitbeyondex 
Amit that’s an insightful capture of the disrupted lives our generation is experiencing as a consequence of increasing globalisation for affluent Indians in our succeeding generation. And your simile of sparrows is an apt description of our migratory children. However, we too did this migration albeit mostly within India when we moved out of the cities and towns where our parents lived. And this is probably best characterised by life in boarding colleges where it actually replicated the Bhramacharya Ashram where we lived in proximity of our ‘gurus’ and away from our parental home. It would be great if you followed this up with how the digital, virtual world is mankind’s way of ameliorating the pain of near and dear ones living in far away lands. While its fashionable (and certainly true) to bemoan the end of face-time as in earlier times; its also the new reality – one that our grandchildren will assimilate as a natural way of life…
Posted by debashisbose | August 17, 2023, 4:42 pmThanks Debashis for your thoughts. Bhramacharya ashram away from home is a good example but yet a bit diluted from being under the influence of grand & prev-gens. I think the ‘storytelling’ is a big miss.
On your last point about digital being the way, am yet to accept that as the way. I believe human society loses more than it gains due to the virtual connections. I would rather that we learn how to live with the least digital intervention in our life. It’s ok for the ‘things’ we use but not for a rounded life…but am sure there are enough people who see the other way round.
Posted by amitbeyondex | August 17, 2023, 10:45 pmBeautifully written. However, it can also note that living together as a family of 3 generations, and eating together on home cooked meals, is what make the family bonds
Stronger and life happier and more meaningful.
See the articles on the website http://www.ideaz4india.in
Posted by Major PT Choudary | August 22, 2023, 10:06 amDear Major Choudhary,
Thanks for your comments on my blog post. I wish we could sit over a coffee or a drink and explore wide on our thoughts.
Warm regards, Amit
Posted by amitbeyondex | August 22, 2023, 10:22 amA wonderful and thoughtful post. A veryphilosophical point of view. As we grow older, it is our lot to ponder over the meaning and purpose behing it all, isn’t it.
But aren’t children going away and having no further contact, the more natural order of life ? In almost all species, offsprings go away and do not ever look back. In fact they usually attack their parents and drive them out. In most of human existence (before we turned away from nomadism and settled down), our species probably did the same.
What is different is that we all live a lot longer, thanks to easy nutrition and medical advances. Evolution does not require any individual to live beyond the child bearing age. We have stretched our life span significantly longer. Hence many of the issues you talk about. We have doubled or tripled the span of the vanaprastha and sanyasa stages !!
Debashis’s story is hardly fiction. Each one of use sees this in our respective families in a large way. But I am more confident of our generation. We will find a way to be at peace with these changed “terms” in life. Sure, there would be sorrow. But there will also be happiness and peace for most of us, I would like to believe. We will find a way. Different from our parents, but ours in our own way.
I can absolutely understand the sentiments you have expressed. Maybe one of these days, we should sit under a tree and ruminate on this !!
Posted by Ramesh | December 8, 2023, 12:38 pmThanks a lot dear Ramesh. You are more than a Co-Spirit, a trailblazer in your own chosen way.
Let me know the date, time and the tree. I will be there!
Posted by amitbeyondex | December 8, 2023, 3:58 pm