The other day I went to a friend's place. I met a boy who had recently shifted here. He was an Indian who had shifted to Australia and was visiting his grandparents. When I asked him general knowledge about India he couldn’t answer but knew above and beyond what we in 8th grade have studied about Australia, why is that?
In India, most of us grow up in joint families. We know about the basics of our culture, what is allowed, what is not… yet people lose touch with their culture. Most of the time what happens is that when a child is growing up they think of their country as the best. They say that they will never leave and study and get a job in India itself, but when they grow up they tend to focus on the negative side of things, such as the pollution or the lack of hygiene in certain places or lack of employment ,instead of focusing on the positive side, such as the rich heritage, the culture, the food,the people, etc. They may feel that it's okay to let go of such things and go abroad for education and a better life,this is often referred to as brain drain. What they don't know is that when they visit India again with their children, they will know a lot about India as their entire upbringing was here, but what about their kids? The kids of the people who leave don’t know anything about India, all they know is that either their mom or their dad grew up there. Like most kids they too feel that their own country is the best, and in this case that’s not India.
It’s okay to seek higher education and to want to go abroad for studies, but losing touch with one's own culture and further being a reason that your child doesn’t know what hindu culture or muslim culture or any other culture is, is something that we as a country need to work on, and that is only possible if we work towards that goal together.
Comments