A beautiful article by Shri B.N. Uniyal - Delhi. Today’s Grand-Parents Must be the First Gurus Gururagrya: paro dharmah: poshanh:-a-dhyapan-a-nvit: I Pita yadah dharm-h: sa vedeshwapi sunischitah: II {Father is the first guru (master, teacher) of the son for it is he who takes care of him, brings him up and teaches him the first lessons of life. Sure, father is dharma incarnate for the son. That is borne out by the Vedas.} I cannot say when I first heard this, but I am sure every Brahmin child of my age must have heard this at one time or the other. And, why only a Brahmin child, even children of all communities in our villages must have heard the shloka during his or her childhood. It is not necessary that everyone must have heard it in Sanskrit. Others may have heard something to this effect, that is, the essence of this shloka in their local tongues such as Tamil, Talugu, Malayalam, Kannada and even Hindi, Bangla, Oriyya and Gujarati, for the truth spoken in this shloka is common to all Indian languages. Today, there is a need to expand and enlarge the meaning of our ancient shlokas and re-interpret them in the light of new knowledge and changes in human culture and values. Hinduism, unlike other static faiths, is a dynamic religion, ever changing, ever revising and redeveloping in the light of new developments in sciences, culture and human values. Therefore, we need to re-interpret this shloka also to enlarge the meaning of “father” so it means parents, that is, includes both the father and the mother, as also the meaning “son” so it includes our daughters also. During the last three or four decades India has changed much and so have the Indians. Today Indians are a world community living in almost every country of the world. But they all remain Indians at heart. As Amatya Sen said, “you can take an Indian out of India but you cannot take India out of an Indian.” What Amertya Sen means is that wherever the Indians may go and live they carry their sanskars or the essence and spirit of their faith, religion and rituals with them. However, what is now often missing is the knowledge of these sanskars, rituals and shastras and folk traditions. This is true not only of the Indians who have immigrated to other countries but also largely of the new nuclear families living in cities far off from their parents and often with both the father and mother employed in demanding jobs. Where can such parents get time to first study and learn their traditions and sanskars and then to teach them to their children. Therefore, I would say that the first responsibility in this regard is that of the grand-parents whether they live with their children or occasionally visit them, or live away and far off from them. Nowhere is far any longer in our age of Google and Skype. So, let all grandparents make it a point to keep writing to their sons and daughters and grand-children or keep telling them on the Skype about every coming festival, fast, etc., as also the tales, shlokas and mantras related to them. If the grand-parents themselves do not know something, they can always google and prepare themselves because, they must remember, now that they are retired, they have more time at hand. Why not utilize this spare time to teach their children and grand-children and spread Jayakar and Onkar all over. However, the computer age grand-children has a great search engine in Google and their search sites, and the grand-children are able to explain to the parents & grandparents about the reasons, scientific or otherwise. Even though, there are numerous answers to their queries in the search engine, they pick up the best and logically correct answers and educate their parents. Thus there is an immediate need for parents & grand-parents to search through the right answers and educate themselves.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 14:40:38 +0000
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