The Generation Gap!

Oriana · Sep 16, 2015

With two alphabets added to your previous Avatar, you have become even more benevolent than ever before.
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Thank you for asserting that feeling. I was worried about the ordering of superfluous "N" and "A" when trying to arrange anagrammatically my previous avatar in the outgrowth of my current avatar.

Is that "NO" or "ON"
"No" to denote: I cannot endure anymore
"On" to denote: Bring it on

Such correlation of my benevolence is tempting me to search in Spanish telephone directory which incidentally catalogs some of the longest names next time when I hunt for virtual handles.

You are now like the systems that form over the Bay of Bengal at the advent of winter and transform the parched East Coast India into an unbelievably fertile belt with greenery of poetic proportions!
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I ventured as a sub-Saharan haboob zooming past the Mediterranean to enfold as whirligig in Indian Ocean and wreck the coastal tranquility with slosh of my turbid writing. Such warm mixture in the form of your greeting has definitely cooled the core and decelerated the carnage to pelting shower.

Cheeniya · Sep 16, 2015

It looks as though I can position myself as a Haboob Buster with a lucrative pay! A haboob after my treatment can become so adorable that people will start singing 'Mere mehaboob'!

vjbunny · Mar 25, 2016

Wonderful summation sir... I agree with your mom National geographic channel is far better than the ever scheming stories of soap n ever running after heroine movies as if she were a chocolate not a human being at all pshaw now entertainment has lost that simple humane touch where we get the lump in our throats watching the old man coughing away to his tomb....
The least said about cricket the better....

Cheeniya · Mar 26, 2016

Dear vjb
Thank you for visiting an ancient thread of mine! The passing years have further increased the generation gap so much that I feel like an alien in my own family and friends circle! My mum (May God keep blessing her soul!) was an extremely practical woman with unmatched wisdom. She always maintained that we had more to learn from birds and animals than from fellow humans. That is what I am doing now and one thing that I have learned from them is that there is no hypochondriac among them!
Sri

iyerviji · Mar 27, 2016

My dear Anna your new avatar is very nice

LakshmiKMBhat · May 16, 2016

Cheeniya said: ↑

The generation gap hits me with a gale force of 10 whenever I sit in front of the idiot box with my whole family. My grandchildren clamour for the Cartoon Network. My daughters have a yen for MTV while my wife can not take her eyes off the soaps. I am not much of a contender for my slot as I seldom watch TV unless there is a cricket match in which India is winning. That, of course, is very rare since we do not meet Bangladesh every day. My mother prefers Discovery and National Geographic as she feels that animals are more decent to watch than our modern stars.

What amazes me is that the scenes that used to move us to the very core in our younger days do not have any impact on the youth of today. Take, for example, the hapless father of the heroine who preferred coughing horribly to uttering dialogues. How we clutched our chest when he coughed! He just used to walk away with the acting honours merely for the wide variety of his coughing. Just before the intermission, his passing away would be signified by an oil lamp suddenly going off. On resumption after the intermission, there would be a garlanded portrait of the old man under which the heroine would be sitting, sobbing uncontrollably. There was an actor called Appa Duraisamy who revelled in coughing and passing away before interval. He did that in film after film but moved us to tears every time. He used to be responsible for many a lump in my throat.

Another great directorial touch used to be a daily calendar with fluttering sheets that signified efflux of time. The changing seasons also signified the same thing but people always preferred the calendar. A cat licking the milk spilt on the floor would indicate that the villain had beaten it to the heroine before the hero.

Whenever such poignant scenes from vintage films are shown in TV these days, people laugh heartily and make some jovial remarks while I continue to feel that lump in my throat. I become painfully aware that times have changed drastically. The simple things that moved us or made us happy in our days are not even noticed by the modern youth. They don’t want to see a helpless, coughing father of a heroine just waiting for the interval to get into a garlanded portrait. They prefer someone very rich who could match the hero muscle for muscle. They prefer someone who could beat the hero to pulp before condescending to accept him as a son-in-law. We squirm uncomfortably when witnessing such scenes. After all, we belong to the old school who would not even sit before the son-in-law until we were permitted to do so. This generation gap can never be filled.

I have heard some people saying that the generation gap is more marked between successive generations but far less between a grandfather and grandchildren. I wanted to check this out. I, therefore, asked my grandson to watch an old Tamil movie with me in which Appa Duraisamy scaled new heights in coughing. He sat through for few minutes and walked out shouting. “ Why can’t this old man go and see a Doctor or take some good cough syrup?”
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Reading you post took me down memory lane We lived in the Railway campus and just a few people had TVs but every Sunday all of us used to gather in one of their house to watch the Sunday movie and we loved every movie. Now it has been a long time since we have gone to movie. They do not appeal, the generation gap )

Amica · May 16, 2016

@LakshmiKMBhat, thanks for bumping this up.

Amica · May 16, 2016

@Cheeniya, you are a softie! Who would have guessed you'd weep buckets over old movies?!

As for me, I never cry while watching the melodramatics. It's just that some idiot keeps chopping onions next to me.

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satchitananda · May 17, 2016

How do we define a 'generation' gap when that gap is seen within the same individual over the years? A split personality, perhaps? In that case, I need to make an urgent appointment with the shrink.

Just two days ago BH decided to turn on a channel which I did not know existed. Old Hindi film songs were playing. In the 70's when television first made its appearance in many homes, I remember watching old B&W Hindi films and enjoying the songs. I can totally relate when you talk about the coughing father/mother in those films, the symbolism in scenes etc.

Cut forward to today. I find it very strange watching those films - the dialogue delivery which comes across as very affected, the clothes, the hair styles etc. (The only thing that escapes this rule is my craze for old songs - the lyrics used to be sheer poetry as against one which goes "aati kya khandala?")It feels like one is in a different world altogether. So yes, though there are no children or grandchildren involved, my generation gap is inside my own head. :-D

Thoroughly enjoyed reading your narrative CS. But then that is not so surprising is it? :-D

Cheeniya · May 17, 2016

Lakshmi
Thank you for visiting my thread almost a decade after I posted it. When I posted it I was in my mid-60's and now I am in my mid-70's but the generation gap has remained static. Logically this can be explained by the fact that the people around us also grow up and the gap has to remain constant. But age gap is one thing but the generation gap another. The former is mere arithmetic but the latter is more complex. Lot of factors come into play in determining the generation gap. I have a couple of cousins who are my peers. They refuse to leave our ancient village and have spent their whole life there. Whenever we meet, there is a generation gap even between me and them! At my mid-70, my grandchildren find me a lot more acceptable than when I was in my mid-60.
Sri