From the mouths of teens

Parent Problem

A common complaint among most teenagers is that their parents don't trust them enough. They said that their parents thought that they lacked "common sense". Their biggest grouse was that they weren't allowed to go out often enough even if they were in groups and that their curfew time had to be followed strictly. "Even if we have a good reason to stay out beyond our curfew time and our parents know that it is perfectly justifiable, they complain", says Ashwini Pai.

Career Choices

About taking up jobs, Dharini Parthasarathy says, while most parents give youngsters the freedom to choose their profession they would like them to take up steady kinds of jobs like engineering and medicine. Says Ashwini , "I think most parents wouldn't consider theatre having any scope in terms of a career. They would like to see their children taking up some stable job which means a 9 to 5 kind of job." Adds Dharini, "Ofcourse there are some grown-ups who think its okay if a girl doesn't take her studies seriously because ultimately she's going to get married".

There's need for the education system to be revamped and students given proper counselling before they decide on what they want to do with their lives. This they feel should be done in school so that they don't end up making the wrong career choices. Amar says parents too have a role to play here. The tremendous coverage given by the media to glamour could result in the youth being misguided. It is also for parents to tell their children what is best for them. "Parents know their children the best", says Karthik.

Money, Money

Although there were heated arguments on some issues, they were unanimous on one point-----money makes the world go round. All of them said that there was a great deal of idealism in the previous generations. But the new generation was much more practical.

When I asked them about working in a village full time, educating children or doing some other sort of community development programme, they said they wouldn't do it at the cost of a full-fledged career. Says Preethi Parthasarathy; "I would definitely extend financial help. But the task of uplifting the poor and the rural areas is the job of the government. That's what we're paying taxes for."

"I think money is very important but it's not the be-all and end-all because it often causes rifts in relationships", says Karthik.

Marriage

Talking of relationships we come to the topic of marriage. It's an amazing blend of rationalism and idealism. All of them said that religion, community and other differences did not matter when it came to marrying and they were prepared to go against the wishes of their parents in the matter. "After all we are the ones who are going to be living together" is the common refrain. All the boys said that they would have no ego problems if their wives were working and doing better at their jobs, provided the wives didn't act like the "boss"!

As far as accommodating in-laws was concerned, the men said they wouldn't mind, providing that their wives earned. But it was the duty of the son to look after his parents. At the same time some of them felt that there was nothing wrong in the concept of old-age homes and that old people would be happier at such places where they would meet like-minded people. According to them there really is no need to attach a social stigma to the concept.

Given a choice all of them preferred to live in nuclear families and added that in joint families there was absolutely no room for space.

Patriotic

Finally all of them felt that Mahatma Gandhi had played a role in our freedom struggle but that his ideologies were impractical in today's world. They all wanted the country to go nuclear, have a crop of young technocrats to lead the country and get rid of corrupt politicians.

"India has a great future and I definitely wouldn't like to leave and settle down in some other country", says Karthik.

And who do they consider great people –Ashwini and Satish say Mother Teresa (there are loud protests from the others because of the conversions), Karthik says Einstein, Preethi says Kiran Bedi, for Amar it's Vallabhai Patel and for Kiran, well he just doesn't have a hero or heroine.