Text: Ronnie Kuriakose   Photo courtesy: unsplash.com

My father is a good man. He started working at the young age of twenty-two and with the help of his older employed siblings, dragged his family out of cruel poverty that gripped their lands then. A pioneer for their time, the family, for this reason, is still looked upon by the people of Vaikom, our hometown – a well of inspiration for those in hardship, a promise that hard work and truthfulness shall in the end pay rich dividends.

My father was also a learned man. In the early eighties, recognizing the trajectory of coastal towns and the many possibilities that it might bring, and perhaps needing a little change, he moved to Kochi and started working at SBT’s foreign exchange branch as a clerk – the golden years, he calls it. Now, some twenty years and more later, and after accumulating more duties and donning several senior roles, he serves as the manager at SBT’s FACT branch.

This is his story and it ends in him taking a well-deserved break after his retirement in three years and touring the world to his heart’s pleasure. This is also the story of all your good fathers. They have toiled years on end, ever patient, upholding the values of the company that they were in, and heartily, knowing quite well that their chance to own a cabin will come in time. There was no bickering, no running to the human resource team; neither was there competition among colleagues or the need to harbor hate.

Reflective screens

Then there’s me and us. The young people who think they are entitled to the world. The unfazed natives of the digital era wielding advanced technology in one hand and holding a pill in the other. The go-getters, with their many letters of resignation as arm badge. The productivity-clockers capable of spawning opportunities at will, trading sacks of gold and evoking seats of influence. Freakers, who live on the edge of sanity, effortlessly weaving in and out of gender traits, and living life to the fullest. The societal presumption of us is that we are self-indulgent, spoiled brats. Our social media accounts might suggest something similar. The reality, however, is very far from it.

There is a quiet revolution going on in Kochi homes. Fathers are coming back from work to find their sons – sons who should have been working to help pay back the student loan that was taken – now behind lucid screens after having quit their well-paying jobs citing reasons as vague as a lack of contentment. Nocturnal and unsentimental, we, with our ungodly music that drown out their advices and an ever-hungry mouth that bites on their pensions, are yet never an oddity for this modern time. With more flourished virtual lives than real, it is no surprise that they like to spend more time online. I also wonder if it is the compulsion to make it seem to others that you are alright and that everything is going well that is keeping these youngsters there. Fostered in early childhood, this need to be better than your neighbors has now come back to haunt every millennial’s home. What it has led to is a witch-hunt and most here in Kochi, unbeknownst to even them, are the perpetrators of it. It is the young people and to be more to the point, their magnificent dreams that are put at the stake.

Considered conversations

Since my last two articles in FWD – on the unspoken dangers of being good, and our relentless chase for contentment – I have discovered in my inbox emails that are, if anything, quiet sobs of disenfranchised youngsters, who are a far cry from said conceived presumptions. They are, from what I gather, self-conscious individuals who are forced to question whether they deserve happiness. A lot of them are made to feel guilty about everything they do. This has led to them speaking less, letting themselves to be seen less, and less engaged with society. They are afraid to show who they are, to word their many anxieties or doubts, and to share their ambitions. They are certain that they will be mocked for it or worse, disregarded.

My father is a good man, but in heeding him I fear that I might drown in a sea of existential despair. You and me, we are at war with the world. We wage it in hope that in victory we may be able to justify our past actions as breaking of shackles. Until then, we sit behind considerate screens praying to our virtual gods until society shrouds in with blazing darkness.

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