Generation Gap

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This is a story of three generations-

My mother once told me that as a young girl she asked her father to take her to a Hindi Film “Dhool Ka Phool”. She had heard a lot about it and it was a socially relevant film. The story was about an unwed mother and her child who was brought up by an old man in  secular way because he did not know the child’s religion of birth. My mother tells me,  the story began with the Hero and Heroine of the film singing a romantic song. Fifty years back in India it was really embarassing for a father to see a romantic film with his daughter. Her father was definitely not happy and asked her,  is this what you call a socially relevant film? She could not enjoy a single scene in the film after that.
The next story took place about 20 years after this. I was 18 then and had to see a film with my friends. I told my parents that I was going for a comedy called” Chasme badoor”which was quite an innocuous film  so no problems so far. Now comes the tricky part. All my friends change the programme and we go to another film called” Griha Pravesh”, a very good film but according to those times had some objectionable  scenes in it. Now of course,  when I see it,  I can hardly  find any thing objectionable in it. I would reccommend it to all couples who have been married for more than 5 years. I came home and told my mother about the change in the film,  no problems so far as the contents of the film were not known to her. Now comes the twist in the story. As luck would have it,  my father brought the tickets for the same film,  for the two of them(my father and mother) for the evening show. As expected when they came home,  is this what you see these days? was the question asked from me. I explained and the incident was forgotten.

Now  is the time for the third story.This happened when my daughter had just entered her teens.  She was watching “FRIENDS “(the famous American TV show). Those were early Satelite TV days in India and we were not exposed to such explicit language.I was shocked to hear the words they used. For a few days it was difficult to digest,  then I realised that life had come a full circle. I started watching the programme with her and I confess,  I find it one of the funniest programmes ever made.

The  end reaction of the three generation was different. I can’t even guess what  will it take to shock the next generation.

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Filed under Censorship, Children, Family, Generation gap, Grandparents, India, Life, Me, Parenting, mothers