Do kids these days have as much fun as we did when we were children? This is probably something that came across everyone's mind some or the other time. Just the thought of it brings back so many memories from my childhood - watching Door Darshan, playing cricket in the streets, climbing trees, eating ice-cream from street vendors, eating corn in the beach, the first time I tried riding a bicycle and went straight into a dumpster, He-Man the master of the Universe, waiting every weekend eagerly to watch Chitralahari, going for a drive on the "Lambi" scooter with my parents and brother, eating hot hot jelebi from the sweets store at the corner of the street, going to school in a rickshaw(I think it was a waste of money, we never sat in the rickshaw always used to push it from behind, when the rickshaw driver used to pull the empty rickshaw :)... fun ...fun!).............. Well I can go on like this. They are endless!
The life that our kids are experiencing is quite different from ours. The very cities that we used to live once are much more advanced now and you can hardly find a tree to climb or a playground or a park to play in and its not safe to play on the streets anymore. They do have other activities like swimming, football, basketball etc, but are they not missing this whole concept of playing what ever you really want to play? Indian kids living in foreign countries are probably missing this even more. To play outside they either go to a park or during winter they go to the mall to play in some confined play areas. I guess they are content in what they have and probably are having fun, but I feel like they are missing out a lot of things.
One more thing that comes to mind is spending summer holidays with cousins. My brother and I have a lot of cousins and we are very close to them now and that is probably because we had so much fun when we were kids. All the games that we played together, all the fights that we got into, all the horror movies we watched together, all the pranks we did on each other and got in trouble with our parents and all the weddings that we attended and had a lot of fun. Those are all wonderful memories now! Now everyone is settled in different countries and hardly get a chance to meet, but still we are in contact with each other and share a lot of things via phones and emails. However our kids are away from their cousins and hardly know them. They don't get to meet them as often as we did. This way they would never know the importance of cousins in their lives. They will never know how much fun they can have with their Aunts and Uncles at family gatherings. Once they are old enough they would either long for all this or would think its boring to talk to their Indian cousins or relatives - who knows! I think they should experience all this at an early age, so they could also build some beautiful memories over the years which they can cherish forever! This is just my point of view!
The life that our kids are experiencing is quite different from ours. The very cities that we used to live once are much more advanced now and you can hardly find a tree to climb or a playground or a park to play in and its not safe to play on the streets anymore. They do have other activities like swimming, football, basketball etc, but are they not missing this whole concept of playing what ever you really want to play? Indian kids living in foreign countries are probably missing this even more. To play outside they either go to a park or during winter they go to the mall to play in some confined play areas. I guess they are content in what they have and probably are having fun, but I feel like they are missing out a lot of things.
One more thing that comes to mind is spending summer holidays with cousins. My brother and I have a lot of cousins and we are very close to them now and that is probably because we had so much fun when we were kids. All the games that we played together, all the fights that we got into, all the horror movies we watched together, all the pranks we did on each other and got in trouble with our parents and all the weddings that we attended and had a lot of fun. Those are all wonderful memories now! Now everyone is settled in different countries and hardly get a chance to meet, but still we are in contact with each other and share a lot of things via phones and emails. However our kids are away from their cousins and hardly know them. They don't get to meet them as often as we did. This way they would never know the importance of cousins in their lives. They will never know how much fun they can have with their Aunts and Uncles at family gatherings. Once they are old enough they would either long for all this or would think its boring to talk to their Indian cousins or relatives - who knows! I think they should experience all this at an early age, so they could also build some beautiful memories over the years which they can cherish forever! This is just my point of view!
Cant agree any better. ditto ditto ditto... The same thoughts keep racing in my mind, when I see kids in my apartment struggling a place to play ! They have very restricted access to everything in the world on one hand and on the other they have unlimited access to everything under the sun through the tv and internet. It'll be very difficult to predict what these kids will turn into.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments Pranil! Yeah I guess there is not much we can do about this!
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