VARIANCE IN GENERATIONS

By NIRAKAR POUDEL

Nepali society is caught between the old traditions and lifestyles and moves towards modernization. Our society has already begun to experience western lifestyle and cultures in last few years. The new generation of youngsters are rapidly shedding off older ideas and embracing the new ones as they remain fixated by foreign culture rather than their own. This generation of youths has different attitude, lifestyle, fashion sense and perspective from the old generation. There is a widening gap between the different generations. The phrase - generation gap - is commonly heard these days.

The world has become a much smaller place due to the presence of Internet, television and other means of communication. Nowadays, existing world’s environment influence and mould the thoughts, beliefs and lifestyles of people. In this rapidly scientifically and technologically advancing world preceding generation is always one step behind the following generation. 

The variance in two generation was common ever since the foundation of human society and will remain so in future as well. The new generation learns many things from previous generation as well as from the transforming society.

Our country is technologically and scientifically backward one. Television penetrated our society just twenty years ago in 1984, when most of the westerners were already starting to use computers. The use of computers and Internet started here just a decade ago. It is only after the introduction of television and Computers, the gradual course of modernization gained its pace. However, only the urban society is experiencing modernization, whereas the rural society is still following the age-old traditions.

We can see many cases of dissimilarities in two generations in our society. We youths are the new generation of our society. We were born and thrived in completely different environment than our parents. Earlier, child marriage was commonplace. We can still hear from our grandparents that they were married when they were very young, just around ten to fourteen years of age. It sounds very strange and incredible to us because social atmosphere is entirely different now.

When our parents were young there were no television and Internet. There were few theatres, where they used to go occasionally for watching Indian and Nepalese films. Now there are a number of movie channels and even CDs and DVDs of newly released films are available. Previous generation used to listen to Hindi and Nepalese songs that were broadcast by radio Nepal . This generation is fond of western music, mostly telecast in foreign TV channels. Our preceding generation could not be up to date about the news and incidents happening around the world. Thanks to the charisma of sundry news channels we are updated every hour.

Take for instance, the progress made in the music sector. Singers like Taradevi, Bachhu Kailas of yester-years had to sing the song, which was broadcast live. There were no facilities of modern recording of songs and even a small flaw could force the singer to sing the song all over again. At the present, we can enjoy live telecast of different sports extravaganza in television. So, from these few examples we can estimate how much our society has transformed.

There are also many troubles caused by gaps in two generations. It has also caused bewilderment, misunderstanding and even clashes in some families. In some families, the elderly people are very conservative and traditional. They don’t accept the changes easily. Even some of the educated people are still traditional and very conservative. Gender discrimination has not completely been abolished. Many freedoms that are enjoyed by boys are not there for girls. In some families the dress up and hairstyle of a boy or a girl may not be decent to the head of family though they are in latest fashion in the world.

In present context, in many families both husband and wife work in offices. The couples prefer to delay in having a child because of hectic lifestyle and pressure of work. But some parents pressurize their children to bear children very soon and some old people even do not feel good about their daughter-in-law going to job. In our society many educated people are still not enlightened. Our previous generations think that we are living far more luxuriously than them. Same will be our feelings about our following generation. The process of social revolution will take place as long as there is existence of human society. There must be changes in two successive generations to bring changes in society, country and the world.