Under pressure they struggle to breathe

Neil Ray | Published: November 07, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Dhaka city's geographic and spatial change has been phenomenal over the past three decades. Its parks, open spaces and water bodies acted as its lungs. Now the lungs are missing and breathing for the city has turned into spasms and irregular gasps. Young generations have little need for those as they are increasingly burdened with out-of-school lessons offered by commercial tutors and coaching centres. Students from an early age are left with little spare time for sports, extra-curricular activities such as songs and music, debate, drama and even simple outing and fun in such open spaces. If their access to green and open space is denied thus, their mental map gets contorted too.
Either they are docile and compliant or simply get derailed as soon as they have the opportunity to come out from under the wings of their parents. The norms set for the young generation is to score marks for the highest grade on offer. Learners are no longer learners, they have to make the ultimate grade their bull's-eye. As if there is no other purpose in their life! Parents interpret their wards' aspiration in their own terms, hardly ever closely monitoring the young ones' traits, their aptitudes. Most of the time, they impose their own unfulfilled expectations on their sons and daughters.
They put their small children in conditions rigorous enough not to allow the latter to be themselves. To make adjustment with the high and unrelenting demands, they unwittingly have to dispose of their originality. It is a cruel world, they discover. Only those whose likes and dislikes become compatible with their parents' are the lucky ones.
So it is not the young generation's fault to become morose, loner and reclusive. They have to seek refuge in something that likens pursuance of their academic activities. Addiction to Facebook posting and computer games or similar other digital delusion are a way of avoiding the constant pressure. Person-to-person communication suffers and at times some of them become unsocial.
Even for those who are credited with excellent scores are not at ease with normal interaction. Sure enough, a very few of them may discuss the nitty-grity of computer programmes or apps development but for the rest brain storming over intellectual issues are simply missing in any gathering of young people. They are turning robotic without the backing of philosophy, literary appreciation and finer emotional reach. Humour and witticism are not their cup of tea.
Older generations demand success from them and they are pursuing successful careers. It is because of this, the nature of studies at secondary, higher secondary and tertiary levels has also undergone a radical change. Most private universities even have no arts faculty. A few have included English and Law but Bangla, Philosophy and even Political Science and Sociology have no place there. Even in public universities, these subjects do not have appeal to admission-seekers. All because, the job market decides their value.
In a situation like this, students get confused and cannot even express their love for subjects enjoying no high demand in the market. Business administration is the rage of the time. Even medical graduates and engineers cannot compete with them when it comes to career building. After all, business controlling the generation of money, its flow and return gets the better of all other sources of income. Even invention and development of technologies and gadgets have to depend on business for mass production and distribution among consumers. Business management, therefore, keeps for itself the lion's share of any dividends.
A Bill Gates or a Warren Buffet could not accumulate wealth to that proportion had they been bad financial managers. Mercifully, the two richest persons in the world have not sold their souls to devils like many people with money do. Instead, they have initiated humanitarian works all across the world and should be followed by others in their service to the humanity.