Respect those who brought you into this world

DC Pathak

(The writer is a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau. Views are personal)

Nobody has seen God, the originator of this universe, but everyone recognizes his or her real-time ‘creators'—the two parents who were joyous at your birth and fully committed to doing all they could to keep you in comfort regardless of their own wants.

They could never be given back enough by you for their one-sided love and sacrifice. That they should remain enshrined in your memory and always missed after they were gone is perhaps their only recompense. They might also invoke in you an introspection of how, as an independent adult, you treated them in their lifetime. It is certain that in their own last thoughts, when the faithful remember their unseen God, they will find their visible creators by the side of that God.

The life of every human being, long or short, is a story—only his or her story—that would be engrossing enough if well told with human sensitivity and compassion.

When expansively stewed in moments of happy childhood memory, parental joy, distress of livelihood when there was scarcity in spite of an honest effort at work, tragic loss of dear ones, and pressure of duty amidst hope, life becomes a collective of distinctive stories large enough to provide for the making of a full-fledged novel of quality with an absorbing read.

The national morality of India is sustained by its normal-looking families—predominantly middle and lower middle classes—that were known for having multiple children, a sense of dedication to one’s responsibility towards them as a parent, and a rare spiritual contentment with whatever life had offered. It is remarkable how human values were considered important and kept on top against all odds in this moral framework. This, in fact, was India's cultural legacy.

The average Indian family embracing the entirety of this heritage had a patriarch—the bread earner— who was totally committed to fulfilling his duties and who often had only frittering moments of happiness in long spells of hardship and toil.

He maintained a stoic silence in all of this, surely deriving some moral strength from doing the duty ordained by his ‘dharma’ and accepting life as a continuum of struggle.

He usually had the benefit of a lifelong companion at home—his wife—whom he always trusted and respected for taking care of the children in what was a decent division of labour in the family. She would be a source of wisdom and stability, and often, in a crisis cropping up by way of a child getting sick or the house running into shortages, she would show the correct pathway to a solution.

The head of the family knew what would serve the best interests of his children and realised the importance of education for both boys and girls even when he was compelled to accept a certain degree of differential that favoured an expenditure on the boy's education more than that of the girl. This socially flawed thinking is, however, getting remedied with awareness of the importance of a smaller family and the role of education as an instrument of success in life—but it does exist all the same.

Surprisingly, it is in ordinary families that an upbringing, even in an environment of lack of plentifulness, produced a lasting relationship of care and affection among the siblings.

A treasure the brothers and sisters shared was the memory of parents whom they looked upon as a remarkable set of people who had done what they could for their children within their limited resources and that, too, without expecting anything in return from them for their later years. It is in these families that the divine recipe of carrying out 'karma' without getting deterred by any thoughts on its outcome,'striving' to earn money through legitimate means, considering it a pious duty, and developing kindheartedness are all effortlessly taught to the children.

This is done by both mother and father—they should be regarded as the first set of teachers—who in fact contributed to nation-building in terms of laying the foundations of a sovereign, intrepid, and humane India while grooming their children as its future citizens.

'The entire earth is one family' is the philosophical mandate that the Indian children grow up with, thanks to the average Indian home where the parents preached and practiced it. This enriching strand of Indian culture makes for a great advancement of humanity in both material and spiritual spheres. It is only appropriate that 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' was India's call at the G20 Summit hosted by Delhi in 2023.

Human values across the globe are taking a beating as the conflicts among the rulers are precipitating ‘proxy wars’ that were putting entire populations in distress. What has helped India to emerge as the voice of reason and peace in the world is significantly attributable to the cultural depth of an average Indian that makes it possible for him or her to traverse the scene from personal to global in an effortless fashion.

Secularism is built into India's democratic foundations through the triple mix of 'one man, one vote', non-acceptance of the idea of governance carrying a denominational stamp, and a constitutional philosophy that no policies of the state will make any distinction of caste, creed, or region in their implementation.

This can make India shine in these days of geopolitical turbulence—a prerequisite of this is that the nation should be vigilant against forces within and outside of the country that attempted to create these internal divisions here. This country is an old practitioner of Vedic philosophy that was cosmopolitan, humanity-driven, and designed to inculcate the belief that God existed within every living being—all of this leaving no room for lesser thoughts.

It needs to be mentioned also that nationalism strengthens democratic India and facilitates promotion of the larger cause of humanity.

‘Man does not live by bread alone’ is a saying that rightly emphasises a place for the intellectual and the spiritual in life—the world consensus is in favour of eliminating extreme poverty and starvation that blocked any development of the human mind, and it is a great compliment to Indian thought that while acknowledging poverty as the biggest curse on one hand, it defined the importance, on the other, of remaining connected with the 'higher reality' even as one was engaged in legitimate material pursuits, not giving in to the ideas of 'high and low' in work.

Indian children of economically ordinary homes are taught this by their parents, and it can never be overestimated what human gifts the latter bestowed on the former by way of providing the wisdom of life and offering an aid to total personality development. Our youngsters should never forget this message and cherish every moment in their memory of the unstated act of selfless love and sacrifice made by the parents as a treasured possession.

They could emulate this in their own conduct later as a father or mother—this will help to sublimate the memory of such parents as a source of positive energy—rather than of any sadness and regret.

A secret of success today lies in being able to make a course correction wherever required on a consideration in depth of any aspect of life that might have bothered you at or outside of the workplace, including family affairs, approach to children, and socio-cultural choices.

Things would have changed between the time you were a child and the present that sees you as a senior parent or even a grandparent. Some values do not change, and there should be no hesitation in adhering to them. However, one is a part of the existing socio-cultural scenario, and nothing should be allowed to happen that would push your child in the prevailing situation towards aloofness, extreme adamance, or submissiveness to a 'bully'.

There are demands of interactiveness that can be handled through an understanding of its importance for ‘learning’ and the exercise of ‘freedom to differ’ from a given viewpoint. Parenting may have become progressively difficult in these days of comparisons, competitiveness, and clashes on interpretations of moral values.

It is important to realise that grooming today was not about pampering but was more about instilling self-confidence in the child. Parenting now basically involves helping the growing youngster to emerge successful on one's own strength and effort and make career choices based on his or her interests and future objectives. In all of this, what would ultimately count for both parents and children is the lasting memory of selfless love and devotion flowing from the former and an unforgettable imprint of the same carried by the latter through their own life. (IANS)