As children, we
all loved to wear new clothes, get all dolled up and go to family functions
because we got to be on our own, play with new kids and even eat to our heart’s
content. We loved to break from the mundane school uniforms, classwork, homework, tuitions and whatnot. We just wanted to skip school for days and be free.
Cut to –
adulthood!
We just wish to
stay home, sleep all day and do nothing - breaking from the routine work, daily
commute, office meetings and whatnot. We are not a generation that despises
family. We are a generation that just wants to live a happy life without any
drama. As a family, we want our mothers to not worry sick if their sons ate or
not. We do not want our fathers to remind us about the bank balance. We know we
are spendthrifts. Our saving skills aren’t as elaborate and accurate as theirs.
The millennial generation is like that. They just want to spend some time with
their family and friends. It doesn’t matter to them how much it would cost.
While the entire generation of our parents had it all upside down. They
calculated where every penny went and sacrificed their entire life to ensure we
got what we wanted. Isn’t that our moral responsibility to return the favour? The
question still hangs by the thread.
NO! We are not
obligated to return the favour the same way they did - because, the situations
then versus now are not at all same. We don’t pay 30 bucks a litre for petrol.
We don’t own a 30X40 house that cost 5000 rupees. We are not married at the age
of 14. The school fee is not 10,000 a year. YES! Money is what this generation
is trying to save but is failing dreadfully. Why not save the time we’ve got
left instead? This generation believes in the present and lives at the moment. Is this day going to be memorable? Will I
remember this day for years? Will this experience last forever? These
questions haunt us more than, who are getting married, what should I wear for the wedding, who all will be present,
what shall I get for the bride and groom.
This brings us to
the next boiling topic – family or
family functions: what’s more important? I don’t even think that this
question even needs any answer. Obviously, everyone will choose FAMILY by
default. So, why worry about family functions so much? Let’s break the
argument down, point by point –
If
we don’t attend any family functions then who will attend ours?
Is it really
necessary that we need other people to validate our happiness? Or is it really
necessary to spend that much of money on making those people happy whom we
don’t even know or haven’t even seen our entire life? Let’s look from another
perspective. Maybe they are our blood relation; close family rather. We’ve been
living next door since before I was born. They have always helped us in our bad
times. YES! They are important people. They deserve to be a part of our lives.
How many of them would we have? A handful of them whom we can count with
fingers? Or do we need a super-computer to calculate the number of relatives
related to every single one of them?
Another scenario
is where our “family” chooses the prospective relative. They used to be our
neighbour. Now they are close friends. More like family. So, they are
important. Hence, the neighbour becomes our relative too, and their family too;
and their family too, and so on. Our family tree is now bigger than the house
that we stay in. So, we rent out a bigger hall to accommodate every single one
of them. We couldn’t afford such an expensive hall that big, so we take a loan.
Later, we are so stressed physically, emotionally and financially, we are
unable to cope up with it all fall sick. So, we have to crack open the fixed
deposits to pay the hospital bills and the whole health insurance scheme starts
playing with us. DO WE REALLY NEED ALL THIS? If you ask me, I’d rather want my
parents to attend my wedding, than me attending their funeral. Do I have to
call the relatives then? And start this drama all over again? Let them write
about this specifically in their will.
You
are anti-social. That’s why you hate family functions.
That might be
true. But, if it were true, I’d not have any friends either. I once invited a
couple of friends to my home and they all ditched me. Does that make me hate
people in general? NO! I just hate family functions where my parents are unable
to explain my relationship with them. If I do not understand the relationship
in 5 seconds, I do not stay. That’s the attention span of any human being of my
generation. While our parents were busy adding more names in the invitation
list, they forgot that our opinions mattered. We were, and we will always
remain their sweet-little-cupcake child for as long as we live. But, when we
begin to form opinions of our own, we are labelled as rebels who do not care
about family. Well, we hate to break it to you. All we cared was about family and not family functions. As doctors, the parents were busy treating patients
all day, but forgot to treat his children well enough with a kind ‘hello’. As a government servant, the
parent had all the time in the world to attend court proceedings, to solve
citizens’ issues, and be a decorated officer in the whole department. But,
wishing one simple ‘Happy Birthday’ to his son was not as important as sealing
a land acquisition deal.
Speaking
generally, all parents have made a tremendous amount of sacrifices for us to even
be at what stage we are right now. But, that makes us accountable and deeply in
debt of our family, not relatives. I owe all that I am to my parents, not to my
relatives. If I am supposed to honour my parents, I’ll do it so the way I feel.
It’s again, not the parent’s choice to make it for me by forcing me to attend
family functions. It is as simple as offering prayers. God will never ask us to
face the North, bow down to North-East, stretch one hand to South and the other
towards West. Though religion is yet another debatable topic which we always
avoid during family conversations, family functions are on another level of
crazy. Being anti-social is not the issue primarily. Being allergic to bullshit
is the actual reason why most of us despise such gatherings. Lock us in a room
with people our age; we won’t have problems talking to each other because we
have all gone through similar bullshit at some point in life. Though many
relatives claim to be cool and more intelligent than us, they do not seem very
convincing when it comes to understanding us. For instance, one of my relative
talks to me about valuing relationships, respecting elders, being kind and all
that elderly jazz. But, when it comes to his own family, it is totally ripped.
His sons don’t respect him because he’s a foul-mouth. He doesn’t respect
anyone’s privacy. He doesn’t value other’s time, and overall, he is lazy as
fuck. Does that justify me being anti-social? NO! Because not everyone is like
him. But, do I look like I care about everyone? I just wish my parents can
understand the person I’ve become rather than being ignorant about what’s
happening in my life. I hate family functions because no matter where you go,
whom you meet, everyone has the same question. When are you giving us the good
news? NEVER! I say in my mind and smile and walk out of the conversation. Why
is that every single relative in my family function list is worried about how
soon am I making my wife pregnant? How and when did this become a global issue?
I so much feel like saying, “As soon as I
am done attending your funeral.” That’d be fun.
Your
wife should also know our side of the family. Send her over if you can’t come.
I don’t know my
side of the family yet, and I do not intend to know either. 600 people at my
wedding and I do not know half of them. Who are they? Where did they come from?
Who invited them? Who’s paying for all that food? It was my parents who decided
the invitation list. They paid for it. We just stood there smiling at everyone
till our jaws hurt. We stood starving on the stage while those whom we didn’t
even know, were gorging on the food that we didn’t even get to remember the
taste.
Cut to – 2 years
later.
My wife has given
up the job search because she took the time to adjust with my side of the family.
She’s a housewife now, looking after the house – a bigger job than mine, I admit.
But, does that count as she’s jobless and idle? Does it mean she is sitting
like a statue in front of her phone, waiting for someone from my family to call
and invite her to some family function? Well, I did not marry a cat. She might
not be at work professionally, but personally, she puts her blood and sweat to
make my messy home look like a home that welcomes families, and not the mosquitoes.
She should know our side of the family? My parents have been married for more
than 35 years now and my mother still struggles to recognize my father’s side
of family members. Looking at the magnitude of my (father’s) family size,
nobody would even dare to call themselves strangers. As I said earlier, I love
and respect my family. But, I cannot say that about my relatives. If my family
wants me and my wife to force love on those whom we don’t even know, we will
always fall short of their hopes. Ours is a pretty simple generation that wants
relationships to be as real as possible. If this reality cannot be accepted by
parents, then expecting more from us is futile. I’ve never forced any decisions
on my wife and neither has she. If she feels like flaunting her new dress and
jewellery, or meeting new people, or going to new places, she is always free to
do that. But, how often does one get to marry, right? Family functions are not
UN Council meetings that it needs a representative from every state, every
country and every home.
To all those
obsessed with being the centre of the universe, the world is changing. Karma has
its way of catching up and resetting the world. Some legendary ideologies may
stay to create a league of extraordinary family members (I may be dreaming
about this, but why not?) and some might fade away into the oblivion. We all
are still part of our family. WE ARE FAMILY. But, are we functioning well as
family? Food for thought!