Imlisanen Jamir
Christ College, Bangalore
We live in a changing world with the modern aspects of society beckoning to us at every opportunity. Is it no wonder that we as a young generation tend to forget the importance of holding on to our ancestral roots. Can we blame it entirely on the modernising aspects of society or should we blame it on the naïve nature that young people of today seem to have. The real blame should be taken by both the old guard as well as the new. It is both the combination of the reluctance of the old generation to instill in to the minds of the new, a certain sense of pride for their culture and also the unwillingness of the new generation to want to have this pride. It cannot be ignored that the pressures experienced by the young people of today are tremendously more than those that were experienced by our predecessors. However this simply cannot be taken as an excuse for the degradation of our heritage that we are witnessing at present. The rapid speed at which we seem to be losing touch with our cultural roots is an aspect which might lead us to forget everything about our past. Imagine a life where we do not have any idea about our origins as a certain race of people. This thought might not sound so horrifying now but whether we accept it or not, deep inside the human psyche, there is need or a desire to belong to something that is bigger than self. And maybe our culture, our race, is that something that we desire to belong to in a more intimate manner.
The vastness of the various cultures that exist in the world makes it even more ironical that all of these cultures are slowly vanishing away from the face of the planet. All this is happening in the face of modernisation. But is modernisation alone to be blamed? People say that we have to move on from our pasts and cope with the present. But how much do we lose if we just take the time to keep in mind our origins and our cultural history. I am not proposing that each one of us dress up in our traditional attire and start singing and dancing. All I am saying is that we should have a certain sense of pride for belonging to a certain community and we should never let any of our traditions die down in the face of modernisation. We should have a certain sense of responsibility for doing our part in preserving the vastness of cultures in this world. What better way of doing this than by remembering certain things about our own culture. The vastness and diversity of cultures that this world has to offer is what makes human civilisation as a whole so wonderful and awe-inspiring. The beauty of human race is written in the various ancestral traditions that seem to be the brink of extinction.
A vast majority of the people tend to undermine the importance of preserving our heritage. And most surprising of all, is that most of these people are those who are educated and are aware of the need to have something more in own lives than just modernized consumer oriented happiness. The future does look very bleak when we look at his aspect. We owe this responsibility to our fore fathers as a debt for our existence. The one thing that all human beings want is a sense of belongingness, and many of us may find it only in the heritage which all of us belong to; inspite of all the advancements that we presume to have. Modernisation should not act as an excuse for this present generation or any other generation to fail to recognize the importance of preserving our cultural roots. The pace at which the world is moving towards a commercialized society is a major contributing factor for the ignorance of the youth.
I, for one, am a great fan of popular culture and I cannot personally claim to have a great knowledge about my cultural roots, but atleast I have a certain sense of pride for belonging to my community. This is the attitude that I propose for the youth. It doesn’t matter if you are aware of every aspect of your cultural traditions. However, atleast have a sense of pride for your customs and your heritage. A sense of belonging is what it offers to the youth and it is this feeling that fills up the void of vacuum that tends to build up in a young teenagers mind.
