If you are a woman, approaching fifty and like voicing
opinions in India, the trendy young will label you only one way: an Auntyji
with a desperate need to be politically correct.
There is an unfair assumption that the solo slant you will
contribute will be a moral one. There is a hasty assumption of implicit fear,
an impatient presumption of a certain wariness of social disapproval.
The
desire to maintain status quo is what shines from over your aging skull so far
as they see it. It is therefore very hard for some twenty somethings to
appreciate that you did cross that milestone once on your way to middle age.
As a rule, I support young people who invest in social revolutions.
I may differ personally on issues e.g. I do not support sexual adventurism
amongst the young; I do believe that the women’s fight for freedom need not
extend to the liberty to stand and pee; I certainly do not equate free speech
with foul language; I do hold that personal choices come with the onus for
bearing the resultant consequences; there absolutely is relatively greater
black and white in my book of life’s rules vis- a-vis the grey. To the obvious labels
that would then ensue such as ‘rigid’ or ‘unrealistic’ or ‘politically correct’
or ‘antiquated’ or ‘out of sync’……my defence would be only one word: time! Time
will tell. Time always tells.
It is with time that I have realized that the more we have changed
the more we have managed to remain the same.
This phenomenal discovery however, is far from what I wish
upon the socially conscious young who are trying to make a difference today.
The fact that change does not snowball fast enough is no reason to stop and give up.
Socially, we most certainly have covered some path. But
it does baffle me somewhat when young Turks dismiss the inputs of my generation out of hand.
What happens to their avowed principle of being open and receptive to all voices?
Since when did fighting shy of fifty become synonymous with fighting shy of sanity?
Lest they forget,
India’s new brand of social revolutionaries would do well to acknowledge that
as a generation they probably have had the fortune of greater parental/family
support than any preceding line-up.
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