A hitchhiker’s guide to an alien culture

The generation gap may have deepened into a ravine but all is not lost for the modern parent. Tune in and you will make the leap, says ANSHUMANI RUDDRA

THEY SAY THAT with age comes wisdom. What they forget to mention is that with age also comes disdain, nay, even contempt for those younger than oneself. A 12-year-old considers herself superior to a toddler. A freshman in college pooh-poohs highschoolers. Bosses talk of the glory days of their youth — when they put in 37 straight hours of work — compared to their goodfor- nothing lazy juniors. And as for teachers and educators, the less said the better.

This disdain, of course, is cleverly masked behind a thin veil of concern for the younger lot, consisting of talk of morals, lack of cultural understanding, media destroying the ethical fibre of society, so on and so forth.

Grown-ups complain of their inability to understand youngsters and their pop-culture influences — they complain of The Gap.

Growing up in India in the 1980s, one heard the term 'generation gap' thrown around a lot. It referred to the average age difference between parents and their offspring, which was about 25 years at the time. Anthropologists and social scientists used this as an indicator in defining various generations as cohorts of people born into and shaped by a particular span of time made up of particular events, trends and developments.

In recent times, however, this indicator has lost its significance. Generational cohorts are changing so rapidly in response to technology, society, cultural references and education that the span of time separating two generations has reduced drastically to a few years. Now, you could be separated from your offspring by two or even three generations.

What does this mean for the modern parent? For one, it means putting that hard-earned wisdom to some use. To be able to relate to the younger generation you need to find points of commonality, of shared interest. But this can be quite a challenge. Secondly, it means taking one’s sense of superiority, locking it in a safe in some faraway land and conveniently losing the key.

We start with the latter. I offer two examples of how we are not all that different from our younger counterparts.

In a recent interaction with a bunch of 11-to-15-year-olds (a speculative fiction writing workshop) we talked about that cultural phenomenon, Harry Potter. Over the course of the workshop, some of the participants confessed to buying the seven books in the Potter series, but not reading all of them. When probed further, they said that somewhere down the line they had lost interest in the series and only purchased the books because they didn't want to be the only kids in school that hadn’t read them. “But you still haven't read the books?” I asked. “We read the synopsis on Wikipedia and we'll see the movies”, they replied.

I was a little shocked and wondering loudly, I sighed: “Peer Pressure!” But then, from somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain came an even louder sigh: “The Rushdie Test”.

The Rushdie Test is rather simple. In any given gathering of ‘intellectuals’ in India, everyone claims to have read Salman Rushdie, or at least some of his more famous works (in his case, all his works are famous for one reason or the other). The operative word, of course, is ‘claims’. Start talking details — characters, plot points, metaphors — and you see the colour disappear from the faces of the test subjects. The truth is that though most of them have purchased copies of his books, very few have been able to go through them from cover to cover (seriously, who has read Shalimar the Clown or The Enchantress of Florence?)

A few years ago I was recommended the Artemis Fowl series, written by Eoin Colfer, by a then 10-year-old son of a close friend. While I was rummaging through their library for the books, I heard a familiar tune on the television and asked my friend's son to freeze his channel surfing. It was The Road Runner Show, with our old pal Wiley E Coyote chasing the always-one-step-aheadof- the-game Road Runner. Both my friend and I were lost down memory lane.

The son wanted to watch InuYasha, a Japanese anime by Rumiko Takahashi, on another channel. Being a fan of InuYasha myself, I did not protest; instead I felt a pang of guilt.

Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, William Hanna, Joseph Barbera and Mel Blanc were not just names, but legends to me. I had grown up on a steady diet of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tom and Jerry and cartoons from other studios, like Disney.

“Sure, I love Road Runner. But anime has more action and mature stories,” said the friend’s son. “You mean, more violence!” retorted my exasperated friend. This led to a rather heated debate, which, in retrospect, I am glad my friend’s son won hands down.

View shows like Tom and Jerry and Road Runner objectively and you realise that their central subject is violence. Warner Brothers and MGM frequently churned out short animation films with mature, seemingly inappropriate content. Anyone remember Tex Avery’s Red Hot Riding Hood with the debonair skirt-chasing Wolf and Red as the nightclub entertainer? If not, YouTube it. But as youngsters we lapped it all up. So why do we complain about modern animation and television programming? What about our own mythology-inspired TV serials — we all saw Draupadi almost getting stripped and, later, Bhima applying Dushasana’s blood to her hair after having mercilessly slaughtered him, and all this on national television on a Sunday morning.

Bridging the gap between generations in terms of cultural references and influences has become difficult over the years simply because of the number of new mediums that are available today. The modern parent has to contend not only with books, comic books, music, television and films, but also with video games, the internet and technology at large.

AS AN eight-year-old I suffered from a bout of measles, and the urge to scratch the rashes was irresistible. My father came up with a rather ingenious solution for keeping my hands occupied: the Nintendo Entertainment System. (Children that grew up in the 1980s are sometimes called the Nintendo Generation.) Though I had had my first introduction to video games a few years prior to this event, this was the first time I got truly addicted to the medium. As most of the games came with a two-player mode, my mother and I spent hours playing Contra, Kung-Fu Master and Super Mario Bros. This shared experience with my mother is one of the happiest memories from my childhood. And I have never forgotten the Konami Code — Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A. This cheat code increased the number of lives from three to 30 and made the game easier.

And somewhere in that memory lies the solution bridging the gap — sharing experiences.

Modern technology can be intimidating, even for those of us who are adept at using it. Video games, in particular, are considered a frivolous waste of time by most adults, even though most research points to the contrary.

These games not only help develop excellent hand-eye coordination, better reflexes, strategy development and leadership qualities — skills no one will impart your child in school — but they also have the strongest execution in terms of interactive storytelling amongst all other mediums.

A fan of the Golden Age of comic books such as Phantom, Superman, Wonder Woman and our own Chacha Chaudhary and Amar Chitra Katha? Sit and read some of the old classics to your children and talk to them after having seen the latest superhero film.

IN A recent interactive session on comic books and films I was left stunned when a 12-year-old pointed out that the dynamics between Professor Charles Xavier and Magneto — from the X-Men comic books and films — closely resembles that of Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent attitude as opposed to Bhagat Singh’s titfor- tat one. The children were completely clued in when I pointed out that these two characters in X-Men were modelled after Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, and the differences in their philosophies.

We were a generation that was told that if we came across a word or a term that we did not understand, we should look it up in a dictionary or a thesaurus or the 27-volume encyclopaedia at home. Now the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica is available on DVD, and utilities like Google and Wikipedia give more comprehensive search results than we could have ever imagined.

The medium has changed, but the tools are still the same. We started out with the brick-sized Nokia; they with the 3G Apple iPhone. If you are technologically challenged then spend a few hours every week on the computer with your child. They can be excellent, though sometimes impatient, teachers.

Share your worn-out copies of JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Terry Pratchett with them and you might be rewarded with Philip Pullman, Stephenie Meyer and Garth Nix. Get immersed in the world of Full Metal Alchemist, Ben 10, The Adventures of Tweeny Witches and The Law of Ueki and you might get to geek out with them while watching Star Wars, Star Trek and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures.

And which adult can resist watching a Pixar film with the wide-eyed expression of a fouryear- old? If Wall-E is running in your town, then take the kids along. And don’t mention Pokémon. It’s passé.

Teenage angst is universal and will keep on inspiring doe-eyed pop queens and zit-covered heartbreak kids. Boy bands will never go away. You probably caused your parents a few nervous moments the first time you listened to Led Zeppelin or Queen or put up that wallsized poster of the Thin White Duke. Imagine the horror they experienced when they heard Thriller or Papa Don’t Preach for the first time (an emotion similar to what you experienced when you saw your 12-year-old dance to Candy Shop from Madonna's new album. Your children will experience something akin to this in a few decades from now because Madonna will never go away.)

The truth of the matter is that there is a better and wider variety of material available to today's children. Don’t fret if you think they don't read enough. Role Playing Games (RPGs) have excellent narrative structures. They imitate the best — Tolkien. Pop-culture is made from recyclable junk. Things you grew up with will make a comeback in a new format: Dark Knight and Transformers. for example. Japanese anime and manga has an older tradition of graphic storytelling than American comic books and animation. Just because we were not exposed to it while growing up in India doesn’t mean it did not exist.

Embrace these mediums and you will be rewarded with your child's company and the tag of an über-cool mom or dad.

Anshumani Ruddra is an author and screenwriter