The perilous journey towards soulless pessimism

Nilratan Halder | Published: November 01, 2024 22:24:04

A gregarious animal, man has in modern times anachronistically become lonely and despondent. With the breakup of joint families into fragmented units in the first half of the past millennium, even the Bangalees started to get separated from their immediate past ancestral kith and kin. The partition of India was the most decisive factor for a large number of families to fall asunder and go their separate ways. But the process began with the educated Bangalees opting for government service during the British rule. Although initially they could not manage better than clerical jobs, gradually more educated people opted for higher-paying services and dignified independent professions in Kolkata, capital of India at that time. Thus a significant number of educated Bangalees had to move to Kolkata with their immediate small families.
With time, the joint families in urban locations have ceased to exist and today, in villages also those are a rarity. Not surprisingly, it is the educated among the villagers who have, with rare exception, initiated the move for living separately. It is a bitter truth that mostly the siblings who pursue education and can manage an employment of modest to decent income calculate it rightly that sharing it with the rest of the families for long would not allow the living standard they could maintain if they lived separately. The governing motive here is selfishness. Never does it occur to them that they could educate themselves at the sacrifice of other members in the family. In case of younger siblings in more cases than not, it is the elder brothers, in the absence of their father, who have made so much sacrifice for the former.
After independence of Bangladesh, almost everyone ambitious rushed to cities, Dhaka in particular, either for higher study or for employment. When they started their own families, it was the smallest unit possible in most cases. The majority of them could neither afford bringing all members of their families to town. When the time came for growing the number of family members from two to three or more, there was a great dilemma as to how to manage the crisis. Either the homemaker had to be sent back to her or his family or alternatively, the mother-in-law of either of the couple or any closely related female relative had to be brought in to the town residence. This equation still works for the debutants in the job market in cities and towns.
Gradually, things have turned brutal for such urban families. It is because of an increasing number of couples getting involved with jobs. When both husband and wife have to rush to offices, they have to make some unpleasant choices. Either they postpone welcoming a new member into the family or if some of them somehow do, they shrink from opting for a sibling of the toddler already causing them so much trouble. Their careers get over their choice for another baby. Those who go for a second or third one can do so because they can count on support from members of their families back in the village or someone on whom they can depend.
The young members of such families have to learn how to live alone. It is not that their parents love them any less but the office works prove too overwhelming to give the attention they would like to their child or children. They cannot spend as much time with their children as they would like to. Most children resent this as they consider such inattention a lack of love for them. It is at this point, parents mistakenly think they need to make up for their absence of time with children with something extraordinary. In affluent families, in particular, expensive presents are given and highly appealing foods are ordered as if those are a substitute for parental love.
With the aggressive infiltration of life by modern and sophisticated gadgets, people have become obsessed with those. Some parents even consider using an iphone a status symbol. Those who cannot afford it, also spend beyond their means to procure a popular brand of smartphone. Why should their scions not claim the same trophy and wield it for their friends to envy them? This is how a veneer of artificial affection and love hide the emotion, passion and trauma today's children go through. In the less fortunate families, the deprivation is starker and the crudeness and cruelty of it at times end up dehumanizing the younger generation.
The process of isolation and loneliness thus continues to march on the modern civilisation. Like a desolate island, each individual is discovering emptiness within the self. The gregarious animal has now found distractions from the reality a way of survival. They may be technologically savvy but their robotic inclination has taken them away from each other. The disconnect of one soul from another is not primal but it is man's own creation. He has sought more comfort than this planet can arrange for him and therefore the many elements of luxury are now exacting a heavy toll from this human civilisation.