Trapped in the Crossfire

 Why do I feel this desperate need to elaborate the modest lives of Aai-Papa? Well, in my opinion, self-effacing individuals like Aai-Papa must be accorded recognition for the following two reasons.  For one thing, they lived their familial lives for the children and the other focal reason was that they were trapped in the crossfire. 

Their elders were the epitome of the tradition bound, while  their next generation, fed on the multiple modernity's released especially by the great Indian LPG explosion of the 1990's, was dead set on unshackling every tradition. In their honest, sincere, middle class genuineness, they were `caught between two life styles/one deadwood, the other shooting up beyond horizons' to cite Arnold rather freehandedly.

Hence the need to celebrate their genuine though straightforward lives. Zillion examples of this phenomenon can be paraded. Let us look at a few. Let us begin with the beginning. Born circa the end of the Independence Struggle and the birth of the new nation, they had a strong sense of principles and (a) set (of) values. The new dawn and the openness it accredited extended their circumferences. They were the first migrants from small district places to the modernising big cities. The complete change in the lifestyle must have been very difficult to adjust with. They were rooted deeply, moreover. Disentangling themselves from such shackles must have been truly traumatic.

Fall-out's thereof were aplenty. Being responsible children, taking up their parents' liabilities was inevitable. Such duties involved sacrifices galore which they had to continue for the welfare of their progeny as well. In the process, often, they had to forego, and forgot to lead their own lives. Hence the breakneck speed of the next generation would appear dizzying for them. Lifestyles, patterns of spending money, behaviour with elders, attitude to child rearing, educational preferences for the grandchildren, everything underwent sea changes, and it must have been doubly difficult for them. They lived it with grace and affection pouring out of their very being despite being much misunderstood, despite being most maligned as strict, stingy, meddlesome, and what have you.

Well, they were the shores suffering the onslaught of waves, the eternal beat of ebb-n-flow so that their children's ships sailed smoothly. Hence the need for such tributes. Some small consolation!

pratima @ parents as misjudged witnesses court-martialed