G.A.P

Read very interesting thoughts about rift between generations by Douglas Adams. The pithiness of the observations amused me. Quoting them below:

1. Everything that already exists in the world when you are born is just normal

2. Everything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it.

3. Anything that gets invented after you are thirty is against the natural order of things and beginning of the end of civilization, as we know around for last 10 years, when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

This elegantly sums up the possible reason for friction amongst generations. I can recall instances highlighting this generation gap in my life as well. My dad is an aficionado of all the items in perfumeries. He doesn't like to compromise on the "quality" of these. The newly introduced fragrance for one of his favorite soaps was enough to put him off. He thought buying that soap was a complete waste of money and using it was simply impossible. He asked for my opinion also and I, wanting to avoid argument at that time, immediately agreed with him. Later in the evening, I overheard my sister and cousin's discussion. They were enthusiastically chatting about this "new version" of soap and how it was a lot better than the older one. They asked my opinion about it. The same soap..!! This 180-degree alignment in choices of 2 generation completely baffles me. This holds good for everything clothes, perfumes, watches.. Oh yes ! When I bought a new trendy, cool (according to me) fastrack watch and had shown it to my dad, he said, "You are such a fool. The dial doesn't even have any numbers. What a waste of money!” Continuing with list it goes TV programs, Music, movies, Sports, Picnic spots, hairstyles just everything under the sun!

Then the famous "hamare jamane mein..." and all that follows. I am sure with some twenty years of time I will be saying similar things. This thought terrifies me ! It is of course true that our elders having more "experience" at life than us can foresee a lot of things that we are unaware of. My mom has interesting one liner for this in Hindi. It is useful in a way that it can be quoted in appropriate places such as when we don't listen to her .. ;-) It goes like " Jo naa maane badoon ki seekh le katora maange bheekh" :-) :-) she only uses half of this quote. The rest is implied.

I was just thinking, what is time frame defining a generation gap? I mean is there a "global standard" for it? I read somewhere it is 25 years. But sometimes I find this gap between me and my sister with only 6 years difference. Oh wait..it can't be true that I m turning old faster than her...No..!! Help..Please..!!