Let us turn our youth to good health, hygiene, habits
   Date :13-Oct-2019

 
By Vijay Phanshikar :
 
TIME has come for all of us to help our youngsters to return to basics like good health, good hygiene, good habits. In an atmosphere where technology -- the digital technology at that -- is taking a vice-like grip of our lives, it is becoming our prime duty to see that our youths stay on the right track so that they get ample opportunity to mould their lives in the most desirable manner in terms of good living. And that will be possible necessarily if the youths stick to principles of good health-hygiene-habit triad. On several occasions in the past, this issue has come up for discussion in ‘Loud Thinking’ simply because it is also discussed in many homes as a matter of common concern.
 
Even as the larger society takes to technology in increasing measure, the common concern, too, has endured itself about helping our youngsters to live by basic principles of good living. We find today that growing numbers of youngsters are using spects, thanks to various factors including their addiction to cellphones, computers, and television. So bad in the situation that people who are recruiting youth for Defence Services are not getting enough numbers because most youths are victims of kharaab aankhe (‘bad’ eyes). Another scourge is weak muscles of young people. Because they spend critical teen years -- 13 years to 19 years -- in class-rooms and tuition classes in pursuit of something uncertain, they rarely get the opportunity to build muscles.
 
Once they are past the teen period, then the youngsters rarely recover from the lapse of muscle mass, unless they make very special effort in that direction. Both the issues -- of ‘bad’ eyes and weak muscles -- actually stem from the third issue -- bad habits, addiction et al. We can realise from this that we are staring at a cultural lacuna that we have allowed to grow in our midst. In the past quarter of a century in particular, our larger society has ignored this aspect of nursing good habits among young generations. In the last week’s ‘Loud Thinking’, I discussed the issue of addiction to undesirable substances among young people. This is a growing menace for which we need to find an effective answer. Because more and more youngsters are falling into the bad-habit-trap and are rendering themselves vulnerable to unhappiness. Unfortunately, the larger society seems to be turning a blind eye to this problem. In countless homes, we come across family elders who do not seem interested in guiding their youngsters in the proper manner. This may seem to be a harsh judgement.
 
Yet, a deeper thought would reveal the substance in it. As a result, we find bars and cafes filled with young people feasting on all sorts of undesirable substances. And back at home, a majority of these young people is found staying up till later hours in the night because they waste their precious sleeping time in staring into their cellphones and computers -- seeking mostly undesirable material that serves a terribly negative purpose in the long run. There is no doubt that we must try our best to stop all these wrong things taking place in our society and harming our younger generations. And because this is a serious issue, I have raised it once again.