Samvaad: A dialogue with our parents

[Shashank Kalra]

Dearest Friends, 

I hope you are being very well - Happy Sunday. 

Last month, Vibhuti shared this email with some of us and responses from some of you have really surfaced nuances of this creative tension that we have come to share with our parents. Although I guess it would have existed in most parent-child relationships - but this generation its happening more and more. 

Diwali time of 2012 - five years ago, was the beginning of such a conflict for me with my parents. When I shared with them that I am thinking to work at Youth Alliance full-time post my undergrad college.  I vividly remember how passionately I was talking - on one hand, why I want to do the work that we do at Youth Alliance and on the other, why anything else like corporate job, bureaucracy preparations etc won't work for me. I spoke for 45 mins and both my parents had dozed off, not because they were sleepy but probably they didn't know how to respond at that point. I only heard them the next morning. But I consider myself really fortunate - because our relationship has grown over this time. They have put quite an effort to understand what I do and accept it too. The tension is there, in more subtler forms. 

We are together looking at the possibility of what a conversation would look like - if some of our parents and some of our children (:p) hear each other out. It probably would be messier than we think but we have a hunch that it will emerge as a profound experience. 

Please go on and share your thoughts. We are all together in this journey as our generation - breaks free of old narratives and find the new. Please also share too.  

Lots of love

Shashank

"Why are you wasting your life?"  |"  Why don't you study for IAS or a government job?" 

"What about your career and settling in?"  | " What will we say to the society about what you do?"

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Dear friends

Haven't we all heard some or all of these at some point or the other in our lives? Have we then accepted that our parents will never understand us and got into an ever lasting war?

In a conversation with a co-worker a few days ago, she remarked that despite our parent's having all the luxuries and success in life, they still have a reason to not be happy because of our career choices. 

And I couldn't agree more Ever since I graduated from college and wanted to make my own life choices which din't align to their understanding of "settling in", I have been in a constant friction with my father.  Sadanand Ji, a mentor, calls it creative tension, which I believe is such a great cause of stress for me most of the times.

Having known that a lot of us might be in this "creative tension" with varying degrees with our parents and relatives about our life choices, we thought to work this out together. 

Ravi Bhaiya, Founder, Manzil  has agreed to facilitate one such dialogue (Samvaad) between a set of parents and children for a deeper true conversation about our lives. The idea is to open space for conversations to understand our parents and their fears and let them know us and our choices better. 

To take a step further to organize such dialogue, we want to hear from you, about your and your parent's interest to be a part of this Samvaad.

Please fill  this form, which would help us to understand the current situation around this theme.Once we hear from you and deepen the understanding of how your relationship with your parents has been - we shall build the design and invitation. 

About the date and venue - you will hear from us soon :)

Feel free to share this with your friends and family.Lets get all the people we care about together.

Please share your thoughts on the form -  by 22nd October.

In hope for a better future,

Vibhuti

Email: vibhut...@gmail.com

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Love and Regards,

Shashank

YOUTH ALLIANCE

+91 9873 427 669 | www.youthallianceofindia.org

          

Youth Alliance aims to nurture empathic leaders who apply their head, heart and hands to understand the world and drive change.