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Want to know how you can turn a boring Sunday afternoon at your home with your parents and grandparents into something exciting and interesting? You might be thinking I’m gonna say ” Call your friends over and have a long party”. Well Sorry to disappoint you guys: this post is not about ‘How we can have a blast partying’, rather it is something a little bit more ‘moral’. I guess most people would stop reading here itself. Nowadays,The thought about the word ‘Moral’ alone is repelled by many.

Let’s have an open mind , don’t let our thoughts curb ourselves.

Ok. A bit too much of my psych-talk. Here is the answer. “Have a nice long chat with your family!”.

Now the dilemma would be

What do I chat with them? There’s just nothing to say!

This question would have come to most of our minds and we would have asked it aloud (for some, a bit too loud perhaps) or at least thought about it and kept quiet.

Well this shows that we’ve come to a stage where we don’t even know what to talk with our family and we end up not spending much time with them. This can be one of the best things in life that you will miss out on.

Right from my childhood I liked to have friendly fun filled chats with my family and I used to enjoy the time that I would spend with them. These special occasions would come, as I said, on a boring Sunday afternoon or maybe occasionally on a long train journey.

But at one point I too had developed this “Who cares to talk to family!” disease. But I’m happy that I’m back on track and this post is dedicated to my family.

I would ask my mom or granny : “Tell me instances from their childhood or mine!”. It would be simply great and I enjoyed listening to loads of stories about their life then and how they used to spend time in the olden days when there was no electricity widely available (my granny’s childhood) and no “idiot boxes” (mom’s childhood) to keep yourself busy with all sorts of soap operas. time would fly by listening to them. The happiness and excitement that you can feel from them is something inexplicable. You wouldn’t believe the amount of fun they had even without all these modern utilities. They would do all sorts of stuff : play with mud, go swimming in rivers, climb trees, play a variety of made up games, fight with each other, roam around the local areas. No restriction, complete freedom.

Also, to say about the elders, there wouldn’t be any lasting family problems and everyone was at peace and poverty also seemed to be less. Also health problems were rare, one would live more than 80 years.

I wonder why we are not the same now. Having given a thought about it; and from the things that I’ve heard from these ‘Occasions’ , I’ve got a pretty good idea about it.

Analysis:

One big difference that I’ve found is that they(children at that time) had loads of friends to play with. Now thinking about it, the world population have sky rocketed after their time and still I’m saying, “We haven’t got much company to have fun with in our childhood”! Ain’t this odd?

No, if we realize that although we have increased in numbers we’ve decreased the number of members in a family. The joint family structure has broken down and nuclear families are prevailing.

My granny used to have a joint family and the ancestral house still serves as one. Although the number of families staying there have reduced to two. Whenever a marriage or a special occasion would come, all the families would come together. It would be huge! That’s the time I used to get enough of them, in my own generation, to play with. Being a single child, such occasions were often waited upon eagerly.

Being in such a joint family increased the chances of solving problems and staying together. Also there would be people to take care of you if you go broke. As a family you can rise up again. Also, you wouldn’t become an orphan if things go haywire. The family will be there backing you up. This is one thing that the world needs the  most now – Support of family.

So as a whole disintegration has taken place.

Secondly, I think the advent of technology has taken us apart. I’m not at all against technology rather I myself am an engineering student and caress technology more than anything. But there could be harmony between both.

My granny used to play with balls made of coconut leaves (She has taught me how to make them), bats made of fallen coconut trunks, made playhouses using leaves sticks and other suitable stuff, all eco-friendly. They used to have fun better than us and still didn’t ruin nature. Everything was serene. No plastics were used for all  these and if we choose to, we can carry on this tradition, have more fun and at the same time, saving earth!

Thirdly, the amount of restrictions that are put on a child now are sure to get him/her in a bad state. The best thing that a child can do is have fun. Better to say, the best thing that anyone can do is to have fun. Fun! It helps us learn, it helps us to stand on our own feet, it helps us bring an urge to get up everyday from bed and expect for a great day ahead.

Earlier, as I said children were allowed to roam carefree and even if they were hurt, they wouldn’t care much and it would cure naturally. If not the natural or ayurvedic medicines would help in curing it. But now if a child falls down, the mom would come running crying as if the world has come to an end. They end up not allowing the child to go outside and play.Don’t make a big fuss about that. Children should learn by falling. At least give them the freedom to play. Being locked up inside the four walls of his/her house, he/she ends up getting addicted to computer or the “idiot box” and develop lots of problems.

Let children play when they should be playing! Let they interact with nature. It’ll help them much better than being exposed to other useless things at an early stage.

Conclusion:

These are only some of the things that I’ve thought out and that I’ve learned from others. Start thinking about it people. Let words spread and let thoughts be translated into action and if possible lets try and restore what’s left of the heritage that we’ve got from our ancestors. Don’t let our dumb thoughts ruin ourselves.