FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS A CONTRIBUTION FROM GAURI JOSHI, A STUDENT OF DELHI SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM. WE HAVE REPRODUCED THE SAME WITHOUT ANY CHANGES.
A smart dress. Fashion sense. An expensive phone and a Personal Laptop-when I saw my cousin join college 5 years back, this is what I expected for myself too. Then weeks later when she would tell us about DU protests and volatile discussions-I would picture school debates and think this was nothing. It must be a sequel, I would laugh it off.
College is much more to the childish notions of a new teen. It is vibrant on the outside, a tornado inside. And college is just a generalisation of the 65% population of our country-young energy is everywhere.
Amidst the positives of a young nation-more workforce, we are facing the cons too; since roses have thorns too. The nation was deemed ‘intolerant’ by ‘intellectuals’ in 2015, saying that this situation did not occur anytime back in history. But did we have such a huge youth before? People have been interested in issues always-and this is on the uphill in India thanks to literacy and the technical evolution. So now you see people proposing theories and presenting inventions with their hair still black and not a wrinkle on their vibrant face.
With light, there is shadow. We have young achievers AND young criminals too. The first instance that comes to our head is of the Nirbhaya case juvenile, and more recently the class 11th boy who killed Pradyuman. The newest addition is the rattling case of a 15-year boy who killed his mother and sister in a fit of rage over studies.
Credit and blame are never treated the same, but seeing both the cases it is not hard to point out that the Internet and access to everything present in the world by anyone (we must thank the Data Revolution which began last year) is the major, if not the only reason for achievements as well as crime. The same net which teaches you to make a drone at home teaches you to make a bomb too. We have complex problems cropping up since we left our easy ways in search of shortcuts-information overload and Artificial Intelligence(AI) complexities.
The energy levels are rising-they are not going down anytime soon. People are quick to form opinions and would prefer saying them aloud before checking twice about the relevance or content of their ‘comments’ and views. People’s outlooks have changed. A decade or less back it was seen as a good practice to not get stressed by social notions and focus on oneself first-but now, this is becoming a negative trend as self-gratification is the most important to individuals. It has given rise to a sense of dissatisfaction and unrest in the youth. Competition at a young age and situations that were better faced at an older age are boiling as lava inside us. While this pressure is a catalyst to better performances, the individuals are getting affected negatively in turn and are unable to find solutions to problems that would appear easier in a previous timeframe and situation.
Patience has gone down severely. Like two-minute noodles, people want instant results in all spheres of life even relationships.
It is not wrong to question old practices and move to a better tomorrow, since ‘Change is the only Constant’. But not everything needs change-we must learn to have faith, hope and belief. People have stopped dreaming and themselves brand thoughts as realistic or idealistic. But do we need to categories and rationalize everything? Is reward and result the only parameter for doing something? Maybe that is why religion is dwindling since the faith of the fast progressing individual cannot wait, and sins or terrorism are gaining more followers since money and rewards are in sight or at least promised beforehand.
We must pause and breathe. Life is not running away as fast as we are chasing it away. Not everything grandparents and parents say must be scanned under the lens of ‘Generation Gap’. A line my father once told me comes to me-if you listen to us and heed to our advice, or even consider it, you have a century and more of experience to gain-just sum up the ages of your elders
