Dr A S Bhatia “Mathru Devo Bhava”(Obey the mother) and “Pithru Devo Bhava(Obey the father) dictates that children must always obey their parents (Brindavan101), and ironically these are the phrases which most of our young generation may not have evenheard of! Thanks to the modern educational policy which this country has adopted immediately after independence, by way of which, we are creating only robotic young educates without having any emotional values of human relationships which our ancient holy scriptures like The Ramayana, the greatest epics of Hindu mythology have delivered to Mankind.It was shocking to see a video going viral on social media depicting the shattering value of humanity in this period of stress and depression of Corona Pandemic.This viral video, shows an old fragile person lying in front of Saint Peter School BC Road Jammu in the early morning hours. Perhaps he must have deboardedan interstate bus. There was nothing significant in this as many passengers used to come at this point on BC Road Jammu to board interstate busses to go to their desired destinations or they come from other states to their home town. It was the second day when an auto driver noticed that the old Sikh is lying on the side of the road and no one had come to take himback to hishome. It was the astonishing moment for the poor auto driver, to seea man lying on the road side for thewhole of day.He went to the old man, the personality of whom was telling the history of a glorious past, and bowed down to ask Sardar ji , Kaha Jana hai, ( Sir, Where do you have to go?). The middle aged man looked towards Pradeep, the auto driver, and said,” NO WHERE”!! The auto driver was perplexed and immediately came to realize the helplessness of the Sikh in his late seventies.He went to his auto rickshaw to bring his Tiffin for the abandoned old man! Corona Pandemic has exposed many ugly faces of human relationships. Therewere news where the parents hadabandoned the dead body of a two months old child who died of corona. Sons throwing their mother out of the house in the mid of darknight suspecting her to be suffering from COVID infection. People were not allowing the funeral of corona victims in their area and worst of above is the story of the south Indian Neurosurgeon who devoted all his life in the service of the people of his area but his dead body was humiliated beyond any humane sense of imagination, the ambulance carrying his dead body was stoned and chased , his friends were beaten and a respectful funeral was denied to a person who sacrificed whole of his life to the service of mankind, are the few among many heart breaking news during this pandemic. This old Sikh man lying on the footpath of BC Road, ultimately succumbed to the disease in the hospital where he was got admitted by a NGO. As I was told that during his stay in the hospital, he was repeatedly trying to take out his oxygen mask and kept on muttering,”I don’t want to live anymore.” This man from Delhi had come to Jammu to meet his friend, the address of whom was not with him. Obviously, he was trying to hide the facts that he had fled to Jammu because of the ill treatment met to him after the death of his wife suspected tobe a victim of Corona Pandemic by his children. Ironically, her daughter in Delhi, who was continuously called by the NGO to come and take control of her father did not come, instead sheasked the NGO to send his father to some Gurudwara or Old age home as she can’t take the responsibility of her father as she was not herself settled in life! What an irony? The said daughter even failed to turn up even to take the dead body of his father and ultimately the cremation was also performed as per Sikh religion by the same NGO who was looking after the old abandoned man. Does this Corona Pandemic has given a new dimension and a new face to the human relations? This Corona Pandemic has provided us an opportunity to revisit our educational policy in the country, our parenting system and need to give professional counseling on human relationship to children. India has a great treasure of literature explaining the true values of life and human relationships. The greatest epics of Hindu mythology,written by Hindu Sage Valmiki, The Ramayana, clearly depicts characters that one should aspire to be like such as ideal son, ideal brother, ideal leader, ideal wife and so on. Lord Rama was asked by his step mother, Kaikeyee to leave the kingdom of Ayodhya and live in exile for fourteen years, so that Kaikeyee’s own son Bharat, can rule the Kingdom. Rama’s insistence on keeping the promise made by his father shows the deep love and devotion for his parents. He happily agreed o spend fourteen years in exile in forests to protect his father’s much respected honour. Does our cultural value have deteriorated from the time of Valmiki to present day that we are unable to give a respectful funeral to our parents? Second significant thing which is important, is our parenting system. In the era of nuclear families children are not exposed to different types of relationships. They are not aware of words like Maasi, Taya, Tai, Phoofa, Phoofiand so on. Children also learn what we do in front of them. I remember when my mother died about four years back andall of us were still in the cremation ground, I and my wife Harleen heard someone saying about my aged father, “Now this old man will not surviveanymore after the death of his wife”. We together looked back but could not identify the person. Is he going to die soon without the company of his wife? There were tears in my eyes. Harleen looked at me and said in a very firm voice, “Jeet, I will not let your father die before time” Now I have three children, one is my daughter Sapneet, other is my son Aakash and now the third one is our Daddy Surinder Singh, a retired engineer.” I was answerless. Both my children were looking towards the face of Harleen by holding herboth hands, trying to overcome the shock of losing their grandmother. This whole episode has happened nearly about four years back l and since then Harleen is very particular about the diet , medicine and care of my aged father. Very strangely last year during pandemic, when Dr Harleen got infected while performing RTPCR Testing on Covid patientsat IIIM canal road laboratory and was in a very bad condition , my both children came to me , holding my hands said, “Papa we will not let our Mom die.”I was looking at their innocent faces in the similar situation,I had encountered in the cremation ground four years back, Harleen seemed to be staring with smile at me through their eyes. This was the reflection of the behavior of Harleen which my children had seen in their childhood and have learnt that parents do need care, love and affection. In order to bring the change in the behaviour of youngsters towards their elders there has to be a multi pronged strategy, One isto bring changes in the education policy . The planners need to inculcate Indian values of life, as has been depicted beautifully in our holy books, in the modern educational curriculum and second most important is to revisit methods of parenting, we as parents need to respect our elders in the afamily so that the young children can see how their parents are behaving with the elders of the family and as the impact I had seen on my kids, by the caring attitude of my wife towards my aged father .The concept of family support needs to be developed in the youngsters so that no NO FATHER IS LEFTABANDONED. Or otherwise as Mirza Ghalib said: “Dil-e- Naadan Tujhe Hua Kya Hai Aakhir Iss Dard Ki Dawa Kya Hai” (The author is Professor and Head Department of Biochemistry, Government Medical College Jammu) feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel