IF ADVENTURE, dare-devilry are considered the core attributes of youth, then there is a question that we -- as a society -- must ask ourselves: “Why don’t we motivate our youngsters to pursuing adventure as a way of life, as a driving force to forge ahead in life?” This is not a simple question to answer, as some may tend to suggest. Looking for its appropriate answer can be a fairly complex process. But let there not be any confusion in our minds that as a society, we have hardly pushed our youngsters to pursue adventure -- in any field (including education). It is commonly seen that in most families and schools and colleges, the youngsters are given a strong advice in favour of timid moderation -- as against the dare-devilry that often earmarks the activity of the youth. That is the reason why the numbers of youngsters on sports fields and on jungle and mountain treks has seen continual decline over the past quarter of a century.

 

Even a blind person would conclude that this decline is due to the overall social discouragement to physical or mental adventure. In homes or schools or colleges, there are terribly small numbers of people encouraging, pushing, promoting youngsters to follow the path of adventure -- not just physical but also spiritual. That is why shockingly massive and increasing numbers of youngsters keep appearing for competitive examinations such as JEE or Advanced JEE even though everybody knows that only a handful of them are going to get into those coveted institutions -- while the rest will follow other paths without much distinction to write home about.

 

There is also an increasing trend to try careers in commerce -- again as a matter of a social wave rather than of choice of individual youngsters. Yet another angle to this issue is of the families or schools or colleges where little encouragement is available to youngsters to take up a career in scientific research -- perhaps based on an outside impression that fewer jobs are available in that zone. “We cannot afford to promote such adventurism since we do not know if the kids will have enough career-opportunities in that area,” a senior principal of a reputed school told me. A parent who was visiting him agreed instantaneously -- and of course most willingly.

 

This small conversation had so many hidden dimensions of the sense of insecurity about youngsters’ later life that often dogs the larger society today. True, in the past some time, a few families are now allowing their youngsters to opt for careers in arts, but their numbers are still small and the larger society tends to treat such youngsters as persons lacking in something. The purpose of broaching this subject this time, however, is not to discuss adventurism only in career-choices. The purpose is also to open the subject of the overall social indifference or apathy towards physical adventure such as jungle-treks and mountaineering..! Enough examples are available to cite how families discourage their youngsters from taking to adventure as a sport or even as a career. And this is the issue I feel morally compelled to raise at this stage. I will leave this open for the larger society to discuss and find out for itself its own position on it.