Half billion without passion!

It was shocking news, in the weekend supplement of Times of India, for the first time in the modern era that the average age of children would be less than that of parents for the Gen-X and Gen-Y of India. Rightly so, though!

The generation gone by has been the most amazing generation of India. The generation, that sailed India through the crisis days of post independence. The generation that gave us so many hockey medals. The generation that gave us white revolution, the green revolution, the IT, the industrial revolution and last but not the least even the coveted cricket world cup. Not to be left behind in silencing the intruders, though humiliated by Chinese, they gave firm reply to the neighbors on the western front. That generation had the zeal, the motto, the striving and the most important driver – "the condition of being deprived”.

Still, no one adored you dear old fellas!

When you were striving we sang paeans to your previous genre – the Gandhi, Nehru et al team that fought for political freedom. We complained you did not earn us good enough as the western and the eastern tigers. Alas, no one sang for you! You grew old – miraculously transforming India into an almost developed country. Your virtue was the patience, holding the post while everything was against you. Thanks to you guys we are happy today.

Thanks for making us happy, comfortable, better off. We have forgotten what the struggle was. You took good care of us. Today we find it extremely difficult to go to office by walk, though it is just a kilometer away. We find it extremely hot at our homes unless we have the A/C’s blasting. We find it boring if there is no booze and party over the weekend. Remark is not about having or not having lots of it, we have just got accustomed to the necessity of this.

We love comfort, we like to eat out, hang out, chill out, watch movies on DVD / multiplex. We go on long drives. Many of us do not hesitate to spell that sleeping is what we love the most. We love the sense of feel good. This is the sense that gives us great pleasure - perhaps because during our childhood we did not have much of it. We were the deprived lot who have got so many things, and deep within that childhood craving in us cries for this pleasure. Well I do not have complaints, but at times I feel amidst this craving we seem to have forgotten the larger purpose of life.

It does not matter to us if the neighbor is hungry, tired, jobless – it is his fate. Our brightest talent pool loves to sell soaps for godforsaken multinational. We have a cricket crazy nation, well it is not the craze for cricket i guess, moreso since it is an easy pastime – from the morning to evening we can sit in front of the idiot box and spend whole day doing nothing. We spend a little extra time in those roadside gullies throwing the bat and bowl. It does not matter whether we play it really, seriously, professionally. This is not just about cricket – well the example of cricket is easily understood. In every walk of life we live this attitude – may it be as a writer, reader, student, manager or doctor – few of us do anything for the passion of it. We have become over half a billion people without passion (for the mathematically oriented the rest are either generation goneby, or the generation in infancy and early childhood.)

No wonder we are going to die earlier than you.

Traditional feel gooders may argue – just as the way they do when I say India will not world cup despite the humiliating defeat in the very first game, against a relatively new team from a small country.

Baby - it is just a wakeup call! Oh, sorry I forgot we love to sleep.