The logic of Family...

I guess family is one thing where we cannot apply any logical though or reason to it at all. This post is driven more by the fact that I spent the past 5 days with my family: mom, dad, sis, grandpa & grandma. For all those who don’t know me much…I moved to a hostel when I was 15yrs old, when I joined S.R.M. Engineering College, Chennai and have been staying as a bachelor ever since then. So I missed out on the part of spending teenage with your family which I’ve heard is quite hectic & chaotic but in the end helps build a good understanding between all concerned. I keep wondering as to how it would be when I finally become a father or a grandfather. How would it feel to send a member of my family to a faraway place for education or something similar? What courage would it take to be strong in spite of knowing that your kid is on its own? He/ she would now have to go through the bare realities of the world, face situations, fight battles and emerge out without any assistance to prove him/ her to be a survivor…I have survived this side of the challenge but will I be able to face it tomorrow when my kid wants to leave home and go pursue his/her dreams?

Another thing that struck me is that, when you sit in one of these family discussions where you’ll hear all updated gossips on who’s- who and what’s happening, it’s quite surprising to think about the topics that come up. Sometimes, you hear of huge fights/ breakups between families that would have been the resultant of an argument or something really small, which any to us would have probably neglected or worse, not even noticed. This brings me to a series of questions:

- Is the current generation staying in touch with their relatives as much as our parents or grandparents did?

- Are we sometimes too involved with work, friends and with our own lives that we tend to neglect or not pay attention to the blood lines and to what has been practiced?

- Are we losing part of our roots by modernizing old sayings and changing them suit our needs?

- 100 years down the road of time; apart from being inside them genetically, would my predecessors actually know anything about me or my beliefs?

Thinking of the possible answers to some of these questions actually gives me a shudder as I begin to realize the fact that we’re all temporary in this world, in every aspect.

We all tend to justify our existence to a point that pronounces utter desperation and insecurity about ourselves, our present and our future. We create the sense of attachment right from childhood, which as the kid grows tends to extend to create affiliation for his/ her community, state or country. Has man figured out a smart way yet for dealing with this? Will human development reach that point where all new born babies are genetically mastered to replicate perfection, with no attachment, but with a heightened sense of wholeness as a species; working and striving to improve life and not to have preferences for blood relatives, friends etc that at times makes us choose one over the other and giving way to disparities.

I believe the thing that we all have to ponder in our minds is ‘Should human race ever reach that stage of development or stay the same, as we are now?’ and the bigger question would probably be ‘Should we call that as ‘Development of the species’ or a degradation of morale & emotions?’.