It takes centuries and generations for a human settlement to call a place home. It takes ages for their practices to form and norm before they become part of the tradition specific to the settlement, generally typical to smaller radius of physical distances. The cultural practices, language/vocabulary, food, etc are inter twined with the weather patterns and larger social practices. In a water based civilization like the Indian sub-continent, the weather pattern, water availability, thereby the crop cycle of farms drive many of our cultural practices. Festivals, food ingredient related knowledge, usage and alternatives being a few. There are libraries of literature about the formation of various civilizations in great detail. It is fascinating to read about how we evolved from being migratory hunting and gathering tribes to settlers, adapted lifestyles to suit to a place.

This post is just a few observations from the recent 3 generations of what is happening with us – Indian families and its roots. Without going to specifics, through that of my own family and experience, laying down my points on this subject.

For generations, we’ve been a family (joint) living along the banks of river Cauvery in the southern part of India. My forefathers are known to hold humble sized agricultural lands that they managed for food and cash crops to run their bigger families. By generation, we are already talking of hundreds of years. As per the practices of the days, wedlocks were pre-decided by families. Girls are wedded off and sent to the groom’s home and brides brought into the villages from other families, all mostly happening within a few hundred kilometer of radius. Need not be an expert in genetics to imagine that this happening over generations is bound to show as clear identifiable patterns of physical features, behavior, food, language and tradition typical to geographic clusters.

Minor adjustments happened to this centuries old practice around the Indian independence era when the family sizes grew too big to be managed by strictly hierarchical command and control, even among siblings, with the property division becoming greyer and greyer over generations of not executing clearly delineated/divided property details. Remember, it is also the time where the country came out of foreign rule, experimenting it’s own newly written rules of land reforms, taxation and legal inheritance systems. I call this the first gen change of moving out from joint family system to nuclear family, still large ones and living pretty much adjacent to each other in same town/village. Most practices remained pretty much the same, that there was no big change in the livelihood and thus lifestyle of the family continue to remain largely intact. Mostly due to this, the shift of power from just the alpha male to more autonomous other male members managing each branch went unnoticed from this generation change.

The second gen, children of the first gen had better access to full formal schooling. Exposure to possibilities and industrial growth related opportunities combined with experiential learning of the parents encouraged them to move away from agriculture based income to more stable and mainstream jobs. This generation is the big visible exodus of the civilization from it’s root to ‘greener’ pastures in search of improved lifestyle. The Government being the largest employer of skilled resources while private industries was still under ‘license raj’ where a few conglomerates controlled most of the economy. Government jobs were the top most priority which came with the biggest benefit of paying lifelong pension post retirement.

Pioneers in many sense, this is the generation that left the comfort zone and explored far beyond the radius of influence of their communities. Beyond states, culture and even the country in search of higher paying work that helped take care of their own nuclear families as well as those members still bound to traditional ways of life and place. A generation, caught between providing and dreaming for the future generation while missing, caring and returning back to the roots as much as possible. One thing that was becoming clear is, this Gen 2 will not go back to older ways and they’ve made clear conscious decision of moving ahead.

Points of interest with this shift is that the families, even siblings did not anymore live in same town or village. They had moved away to towns and cities that their chosen profession had taken them to. Needless to say, this will reflect in their lifestyle, behavior, food, other practices and preferences in a visible way unlike in their earlier gen. The smarter and enterprising ones explored opportunities abroad, working hard for the better lives of their dependents, Gen three.

With this tectonic shift made by Gen 2, in most cases paying off well in the lifestyle, the interest of Gen 3 and their future plans, there is no looking back. At this point, Gen 3 was left almost with no such option even. To them, lifestyle of Gen 1, their grandparents is a great place to visit but not livable anymore. By this point and within the couple of generations, the opportunities and competition embroiled in various Government socio economic policy implementation had also made things tougher in all spheres, especially for those considered historically advantaged by the system and offered the shorter end of the stick of merit to tread into their future. This gen is put to work of pushing the boundaries further. Gen 3 worked to fare higher academically. Some swam against the tides in the country, a few others understanding the uneven landscape of competition they had to deal with sailed the seven seas for higher education and settling with a citizenship, mostly in the US as well as other developed nations. By this time, the sheen of Government jobs started dulling away. With economic liberalization and globalization, private and entrepreneurial opportunities was picking up.

Understandably, this generation is far more removed from their roots now, missing out most of the basics followed and known just 2 generations earlier. Given the new culture they are attempting to fit into, being contrastingly different of what they originated from, they are caught in between. Many choose easier option of shedding the old and picking the new creating a big stress in their family ties and how they are perceived from back home.

I must pause here on this and bring up the questions that need to be pondered than answered. I will not answer it myself here. I know the answers will vary from different points of view. However, I am also sure the answer largely lies between the 3 generations and the major shifts they contributed to in the migration of families from one lifestyle to other over time.

Points to ponder:

Please share your thoughts and arguments in comments…