It is mid-February. The laziest time of the year for me, because all classes have shut down prior to the annual examinations. This is when I have the most free time, and this is when I let it wander most guiltlessly. So it has been for a long time now. Lately I have been thinking about my lineage: all the generations I have seen. It is my belief that we are all very complicated and unique admixtures of the genes of many generations of ancestors; there is hardly anything about the 'me' in me that is completely new. I am sure, for example, that if you take my father and my dadu out of me, there will be virtually nothing left (oh, tiny bits and pieces of some much older ancestors, maybe). Anyway, the thing that I am musing over is that I have seen six successive generations of living people now. The oldest were my dadu's parents, then my grandparents, then there were my parents' generation, then mine, then my daughter's and now their children are being born: you can see me cradling the newest arrival in the vast extended family I have created; he is all of three months. Today's parents are being very late about it, so they will be lucky if they live long enough to see five generations. It has also been a very communicative family, so, besides everything I have read and seen about the world, I have witnessed living history for close to a hundred and fifty years.
The most remarkable thing about this lived experience is that, unlike most people around me - especially those of my own generation and those up to twenty years younger - I do not believe that either the world or the people in it have really changed very much within the last two or three decades. Technology hoopla? That doctor was using anesthesia and watching movies a century ago, and they had already invented the telephone, the aeroplane, radio and TV, atomic bombs and computers before my grandpa was middle aged. Wars? They lived through two world wars; today we see firecrackers and skirmishes in Gaza and Ukraine. Women plying their wiles and men cheating or swooning over them? That sort of thing was old hat millennia ago. So was 'corruption' in politics and dirty tricks in business, so was mass unemployment and pathetic pay packets for the vast majority (brush up on your Chander Pahar and Jana Aranya). They survived horrible famines and epidemics; these days we are traumatized by CoVid, which, when the madness was all over, confirmed that the mortality rate stayed at no more than one per cent, regardless of what we did or didn't to 'contain' it. We have vastly more people and motor vehicles around; that's one big thing that has changed, certainly, but even around 1900 so many writers were talking about India's teeming millions, and today, even the 'poor', at least in cities, are on the whole better clothed and fed than when I was a child.
That is one big reason, coupled with my own jadedness, why I find the world so increasingly tiresome and boring. Two things have definitely changed for the worse: people on the whole have become far weaker both in body and mind, far more easily dissatisfied and frustrated, far less willing and able to fight adversity despite having much more than their ancestors dreamt of (some important lesson to be learnt here?), and good manners in public have almost vanished, at least in this country, at least in urban areas. Maybe folks are much more honest in expressing what they truly think and feel, which is a good thing, but couldn't that be done less loudly, less hurtfully, less crudely?
It is nearly two decades since I wrote a post here titled 'The world we are making for our children'. I have been reminded forcefully of it since this child was born. What a world he has been born in, sadly; how much he must struggle to find some peace and joy in it! I am also reminded of the terrible poem 'Prayer before birth' by Louis MacNeice. May this child and his generation therefore carry my blessings, and may those blessings be of some slight worth. People like me tried in very tiny ways to make the world a little better: I think most of us failed, and in any case, we are now too tired and timid and weak to do more.
3 comments:
There is something profoundly affecting about your perception of living continuity — of holding a child in your arms while hearing the voices of ancestors echo through a century and a half. Your comparison of your great-grandfather to A. J. Cronin conveys that with notable eloquence: literature becomes a bridge through which lived experience refuses to fade.
I have been fortunate to grow up interacting with many elders in my own family, and those conversations have similarly convinced me how much of what we call “change” is often a surface shimmer over very old human patterns. Yet your reflections also carry a quiet melancholy that resonated with me. My son was born late in my life, and I do not realistically hope to see the generation of his children. Perhaps that awareness sharpens the tenderness with which I read your blessing for the newborn. If anything endures, it may be precisely these acts of attention — the stories we preserve, the care we extend, the manners we try to model — small resistances against the coarsening you describe. Thank you for articulating both the weariness and the persistent hope that coexist in anyone who has watched time fly this closely.
Dear Suvroda,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. As much as I try to be optimistic about future generations, I feel worried. However, I acknowledge that earlier generations may have had similar concerns about our own generation. Therefore, I would like to believe that despite a lot of skepticism and turmoil, humans will find their way, and the most resilient ones will endure the challenges.
I do, however, feel that over time, human resilience is being depleted. This depletion is exacerbated not only by society but also by social media. Social media sells an illusion and offers a choice of what you want to hear or watch, which makes people listen to and learn only the things they are already interested in. Most are not interested in learning about the history of human struggles.
As you spoke about your ancestors, I reflected on what I have learned by observing my extended family as well. Today, hardly anyone talks about their families—perhaps because they do not even know them.
I can keep writing, but as I said, I hope the human race finds a way forward and learns to be judicious. This has happened so far, but currently, I feel it is more about individuals (and their closest families) needing to find solutions for themselves. The days of reading (or watching) about heroes and learning from their experiences seem to have gone.
Regards,
Tanmoy
Dear Sir,
Time does indeed fly. And its speed increases as we age.
It seems as if yesterday I had stepped foot into my college and now it's been about 3 years since I passed out from that place.
As I was reading about your musing on how we're just 'unique admixtures of the genes of many generations of ancestors', it reminded me about the concept of the perpetual stew. It's not too famous now but I remember reading about one shop in Hong Kong selling a goat stew that's been simmering for about half a century. Each batch is new but retains the portions of the previous one. That's too many 'generations' to count over a 50 year period.
I do maintain a different view of this. While genetically it is indeed so, I doubt I'm anything like my father or my grandfather. If I were to take them 'out' of me, there would be a whole lot of me left-impending baldness aside! It was not a conscious detachment and digression. I just turned out that way. I guess my mother's advice of not being a mere carbon copy and preserving my identity have some role to play.
I believe this is something particular to me given how I've had slightly different life compared to my peers in more ways than one.
That being said, I agree people have become easily dissatisfied and frustrated. For long, I've maintained that to some extent we're the brown version of everything that is wrong with America(socially). As much I love the idea of having the right to bear arms, I am happy we don't have an equivalent of the 2nd Amendment here in India.
All that aside, I would love to read about your mother's maternal grandfather. Or, hopefully get to have the conversation soon in person.
It's full blown summer here despite the occasional breeze that sneaks in carrying the scent of tiny flowers from some trees. Otherwise, it's the smell of floor cleaners and smoke. As I write this, the sky is slightly overcast and I pray for a decent spell of rain. I hope the clouds won't roll away after their burping is done.
My best wishes to the parent's of the child and to you as well!
Warm Regards,
Aditya Mishra
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