Yesterday's virtue, today's vice

HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED

“Kal ki daulat aaj ki khushiyan
unki mehfil apni galiyan
asli kya hai naqli kya hai
poocho dil se mere”

For us, now in our sixties, it would be fascinating to try and understand the gradual changing of perceptions, ideas, behaviour patterns and cultural moorings over a short span of 40/50 odd years, give or take a few. Just to be clear, I am not trying to be judgmental or snide, just stating the facts as they stand.

Social evils, crime, rape, homosexuality and all those things always existed, but the way we, as a people, as civil society saw all that then and the way we see it now has changed.

Consider this- It was not fashionable to get divorced but there was a social stigma attached. A divorced woman would find it extremely difficult to find a suitable boy for a second time and even if she did, the social stigma would still stick fast. Today, it is as matter of fact as excusing yourself and going for a sh*t in the middle of a party and socially too, the impact is far less.

Then, it was expected for the man to pop the question and the woman doing so was a definite social NO-NO. Today, it is all the same. A woman drinking in public was not at all fashionable although it was not a taboo either. But a woman who did so, was not seen at par with the majority who didn’t.

Disciplining children with the cane was a very common practice and whether it be the parent at home or the teacher at school, both had the uncontested right to do so. Extremities of course, are not examples, but if a student came home crying that the teacher had beaten him in school, the parent would not go to school to fight against the teacher but side with the teacher and in the first place assume that the boy got what he deserved. Today even a mom slapping her son or daughter would be seen as human rights or child rights violation and the matter may well go to court. The famous saying “Spare the rod and spoil the child” was an immortal one as the strong faith and belief was that the guru was next only to God and a respectable figure with every right to use strong arm tactics on the student where he thought fit.

I remember a scene from Deewar, the famous film all of you must have seen, where the mother seeing his poor son becoming rich overnight asks, “I hope you are not doing something you should not be doing”. The sentiment was that the parent is concerned with the methods adopted by the child to acquire wealth and that the mere acquisition of wealth was not enough to whitewash sins committed, if at all, on the way. Today’s mother will probably not even ask.

Homosexuality and lesbianism were seen as extreme depravities and absolutely unacceptable in civil society. Today, there are chest thumping public processions of all that and forget feeling shame, they go around as if they are the greatest reformers in the new world. They get social limelight and some of them feature in talk shows and flaunt their ‘liberalism’ like a badge of honour. Some celebrities are so ‘Out of the closet’ nowadays that they would not even be able to locate their closet if they wanted to in order to get back if ever.

Yesterdays, ‘Wooing’ is modern day ‘Stalking’ so if Raj Kapoor was singing ‘Sangam hoga ki nehi” or Rajendra Kumar removed the ‘Zulf’ from the ‘Chehra’ a mere ‘Gustakhi maaf’ would not do but both would probably end up doing jail time.  Go back to “Tera peechha no main chhodunga soniye, bhej de chahe jail me” was probably prophetic, rather than poetic lyrics given that they were penned some 50 odd years ago.

Surely many more examples may come to mind after reading this, please add to this from your own side and your remarks and thoughts on this article would be most welcome.

 

 

 

www.amitabhroy.xyz