In recent times I frequently read about the alarming increase of suicides among school and college students. The reasons range from reprimand by the teachers, failure in the exams to the extension of studies; the victims hail from villages, towns, cities to the prestigious IIT campuses.

It is true that life has become racy in the present day and everyone who wants to come up in life has to fight their way through. But at the same time the opportunities and avenues which are available for the present generation have never been there for my generation. We also studied under strict teachers, rude lecturers and egoistic professors, faced enormous problems to get a job and worked really hard to get settled in life. But, my generation at least had the patience, tolerance and humility to go through the ups and downs of life.

Today’s major problem is the over indulgence of the parents and the host of diversions and entertainment provided by the world and media today to the younger lot.

Generally, the middle and upper middle class parents feel that their children should not have any problems and therefore, they beg, borrow or steal and provide extraordinary comforts to their children. Even the lower strata society people either try to promote their children shedding extra sweat or drive them to find a job on their own and thus allowing them to be as they please.

Print, electronic and entertainment world present that a man or woman is born for ‘love’ and ‘sex’ only. They try their best to titillate the impressionable minds and adding to that the new generation IT jobs which has extended their tentacles like octopus in every walk of life offer immense scope for a variety of jobs for fabulous pay packs.

Nevertheless, success comes easily only to a few. Even with a post graduate degree in engineering, I had to wait for six long years to get a permanent position. But by the time I retired I had the satisfaction of working for the industries and also created a name for myself in the field I worked. Will the younger generation has the patience to wait for anything? They get upset even if a small thing goes wrong. They feel every one of them is infallible and undefeatable.

In the last three decades, the concept of life has changed in many ways. It has to. That is the order of the world. However, there are certain concepts of life have to remain the same. Patience, endurance and the courage to face the hurdles in life are essential ones. Unfortunately, these qualities are on the decline.