Nowadays, I feel many times, my thoughts, opinion or values turn out to be dated. It is true. With the ever changing world and its values with developments and backlashes, the views of some senior hardly make any sense.

A recent short film in Marathi I watched in the net made me write this. Though I couldn’t make out the contents quite exactly but understood the overall message which was explicit. A single parent (father) who tries to be ‘friends’ with his teenage daughter has to face a shock. The short story ends with the father understanding the ‘natural instinct’ of his daughter. Fair enough. But, should it be so blatant? Another one showed how a young guy plans for suicide and how he drops it because of the entry of a stranger and a call from his mom. This one had a mild dose of paranormal touch. I was shocked by the outrageous and insolent behavior shown by the children in the web serial ‘The Family Man’.

I know the parents with growing children are the right people to comment on this topic. Here also there is a distinction. Correct me if I am wrong; both boys and girls are invariably closer to their mothers than fathers. Cannot explain why. I am sure ‘single parent’ will have really a tough time.

In fact, on certain occasions, I felt I have managed to comprehend, feel and accept the changing values and views of the young gen than some of my contemporaries. Yet, there are gray regions where I stand still or unable to proceed further. For example, swearing and exclamations like ‘damn’, and other four letter words are freely used on some occasions even by me. It is imperative to say that the young gen deploy them with least embarrassment. I come across even in the present day novels by Indian authors and the web serials where even more coarse language is used.

It is frequently mentioned that GenX suffers from insecurity and so they are easy prey to psychological problem. Yes. In some cases, it may be true. But, by and large, I find the youngsters are bolder, practical than theoretical. They don’t attach much significance to the so called values of the previous or old gen. They never hesitate to be brutally frank on certain aspects. I have a general feeling that these guys (in the present day parlance they call both men and women as ‘guys’ only!) listen to the ‘heart’ than ‘head’. This creates problems in many instances which I myself had been a witness. The quality I admire in the present gen is their honesty in accepting their drawbacks. I feel that is quite remarkable. When I am force to point it out, they have the ‘magnanimity’ or ‘maturity’ to accept it with a grin.

Only very few have the patience to read or listen to someone who is elder to them. So far I have been managing to some extent since they say that they find ‘a comfort zone’ in me when they talk; may be my bachelorhood. Probably, because I listen to them and avoid expressing my views which many times likely to be judgmental. I try to look into the positive sides of their views mostly.

Well, probably, my seniors would have felt and said the same thing about my generation. But, to the best of my memory it had not been so.

It looks that ‘generation gap’ is something which can never be bridged by any modern development in technology or engineering.