OF TEENAGERS AND HEROES

The crowd is becoming restless, all too excited, backpacks hanging loosely behind them, all their hysterical eyes en masse rally at one point: the closed majestic wrought iron gate of the elite hotel of the city.

My office located on the second floor of the building diagonally opposite to the hotel; the flurry of activity is the result of thousands of overzealous students aged between sixteen to twenty-five years olds – perhaps intermediate or second or third year engineering graduates, I could make out by way of their uniforms or their slim bags and with hint of carelessness, and an evidence of glaring, ‘we don’t care’ manners. They thronged noisily, a few hundred young girls inclusive, to have ‘one sighting’ of their favorite hero, tucked inside the most luxurious hotel:  sojourning for a while.

Looking at the animated chorus of their high spirits, luxury of the way they were celebrating their carefreeness, I was amusingly seized by a funny ‘brain-wave’, “how it would be, to stand before them, call for their attention and coax them a few tips about, ‘how critical the English speaking skills are for their career’, the crowd is temptingly right age group to pump into them some career helping perks. My English loving heart gushingly went over like to invite them into my English learning fold. But the young at souls seemed totally engrossed in frenzy, “one brief glimpse of their heart-throb”.

Next day, I notice the entire roads, lanes, pavements, and surroundings of the hotel area is filled with trash, filth, the smell of rotten overnight leftovers. I further learned that the pride and joy of thousands of fan followers; the hero, left to an exotic foreign locale to dance and swing with a couple of pretty twenty-something damsels.We the teachers struggling to instill some workable, rewarding common-sense to the students are left to sniff at the stinking odor, and the great heroic personalities, for sure hugely unaffected, to enjoy the serenity of alien places and totally unconcerned, and unaware of the offensive filthiness caused by his visit to the city.

Maybe it’s because of the sheer folly of their dumbness or the mad obsession found in the teens: going after movie idols; I felt it would be a commonsense point how misplaced the outlook and priorities of our young at hearts. And how selfishly deficient are our cinema folks to take this idolization for granted and use the unchecked hero-worship for personal marketing and aggrandizement.

One fact is more than reasonably disturbing me. Of late few of the film heroes, apparently running out of genuine box-office hits, ill-equipped with any dedicated acting skills reciprocal to their fading age and glamour: now they would want to try their theatrical skills in politics. Announcing with equal melodrama their deeply held reciprocative obligation, after so many decades in glamour field, to serve their motherland, their people, to root out corruption, eradicate poverty, and rein in financial and societal differences. Most of them are making loud noises in their respective states, but the slogan: unmistakably the same: “I want to serve the people and help the downtrodden”.

My dear great at heart film fraternity, I fully endorse and appreciate your commitment to the nation and its downtrodden, I wish you could follow the footsteps of our Noble laureate and peace prize winner Kailash Satyarthi: to serve one cause and make a difference at the least in one tethered aspect of deficiency at the grassroots level of our society. Like he did for the “Save childhood movement”: The single largest civil society network for the most exploited children.

Likewise, you can also rally behind one cardinal challenge – to implore the fresh graduates to become self-reliant, self-dependent – to invest all their efforts in that direction. To create a spark in them to infer, “I don’t expect and rely on someone that they would help and salvage me now and in future”. “I’m on my own and there is no one out there ready to work for me”. “I must cultivate myself to be skilled, enhancing employability and I have to recognize this as my fundamental precondition to be on my feet”

The large part of lakhs of youngsters, graduates, engineers are the most confused, directionless, ill-advised, ignored, and literate on paper but hugely unskilled in all metal denominations to contribute to the GDP of the nation. As a teacher I find them neither competent enough to stand on their own nor their communication or technical knowhow good enough to assist them to invite a flattering remuneration.

There is a greater requirement today than anytime else in the previous generations that a few persuasive personalities humbly take up the calling to enlighten our ambitious but creatively starved Smartphone generation. How enormously valuable it would for our young scholars if the crowd pulling, hypnotic, captivating leading actors of our film world could pioneer this transformative purpose. If the heroes’ could use their appeal to change to correct some of the twisted directions our youth are confusedly choosing; instead, appeal with their charismatic advice about the best options available for them. What is good for them as individuals and to the country as a whole? Scores of youngsters are willing to listen to them; they are enthusiastic to assemble in lakhs with just one command.

I count on the omnipotent film celebrities convincing strength to help identify the decisive critical milestones, the significant awareness every teenager needs to realize to become productively mature and self-reliant. This has to be spoken to with a high persuasive pitch, a tone that every graduate can connect with, to help judge his top priority choices, his primary liabilities, and competencies. The manner and style of communication of this message have to come out so that the teens can quickly realize their most urgent concerns and commence the appropriate mental changes to run in that direction of creating their financial independence.

If this Smartphone generation wanted to utilize the advantages of the favorable economic growth in India, fast-changing and accessible technological developments in the world, and their close proximity to being well-connected through internet and tech-gadgets. It is important to understand that these features are not like low hanging fruits to take quick advantage; neither the perks to be enjoyed would automatically come choosing to benefit them. To seize them, there are skills to be learned, expertise to be displayed, and grit to be demonstrated. Areas where many of our millennials’ are on backfoot especially graduates emerging from semi-urban and rural domains. It would be an uphill task for any young adult facing such harsh multiple disadvantages: wanting guidance, lack of role models; and the hacked educational program shouldn’t become a curse in the chronicles of our fledgling scions of our multicultural heritage.

It would sound discouraging today that the young as soon as they enter the college they have to deal with the skewed design of the system, the unstimulating surroundings that might jolt that their impressive aspirations never merit an appreciation. They are stereotyped as believing whatever is passed on as training is what they have to settle with: nothing more or nothing less. There is no facility or a yardstick to measure their aspirations, their inner inventiveness, and their preferences. Unfavourably, the system is set like one syllabus fits the bill of the all the combined requirements of youth to transform himself as a self-dependent, self-earning icon.

As a result we are likely to see the majority of graduates or the job aspirants coming out of the colleges are never given an opportunity to connect with their true talents or their inbuilt privileges and therefore they don’t know what they really are capable of accomplishing once they step out into a world of reality and challenges. Where to start or whom to seek advice or whom to follow?

It is to be taught the sooner the better, to recognize, that every individual is genetically packed with multi-layered abilities, strength to shout about his workmanship, his attitude to accomplish it. Simultaneously, spread before him is a conglomerate of possibilities. All that it takes is a spirited teacher, an eloquent professor, motivated parents, passionate grandparents, who can help them to call upon their inner fiery hunger to be somebody and enough self-awareness to confront any contest on the outside.Who could be more eligible to impress upon the right message to the gigantic group of budding graduates? My answer: Any emotional, eager and well-intentioned celluloid heartthrobs – who can sway them in the right direction, give the right counsel, the proper caution, and strict advice with the earnest followable appeal. Assuredly, I have observed, only the huge fan following luminaries is capable of this remarkable instructional task.

I want the educative medicine to be administered: how and by whom I not bothered but I’m looking forward to the outcome that is effective and practically implementable. Let’s all come together for one encouraging cause; for the heterogeneous talented mosaic of our young Indian aspirants.