Marriage and more

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?" If you think this was quoted by someone of your dad's age, you are terribly wrong. This was Plato. I don't know if there is any syndrome related to this attitude. The attitude of complaining about the genNext. Whatever it is, i have not escaped the syndrome. I have my own complaints about the present day children.

April 7th, i had a chance to attend a marriage. If i remember correctly, it was Ramanathan Chettiar Mandapam. One of the costliest in the city. Not a surprise considering its size. Even if you fill the whole palace (yep it doesn't feel like a mandapam to me. poor middle class boy) with people, you will still get place to play. Yet, i didn't see any children playing.

During my childhood, i was always happy to go to marriages. Yeah, there were always some elders asking you what rank you got, what mark you scored. Ignoring those gentlepersons, i always looked forward to these gatherings for a very simple fact. I can play as much as i want. So much so, i used to take rubber balls for marriages. Two things you need for a enjoyable game - space, people. You get both in a marriage. Moreover, it was time for innovation. We invented new games based on the place and the crowd.

I remember a game we played in the stage. The stage had four pillars. The catcher would stand in the middle. The other 4 people has to move to the other pillar. The catcher has to catch the guy in transition.
One mandapam didn't have place to play. All it offered was alley kind of space. We decided to play catching game with catcher blind folded. The place was so small that catcher can easily catch others. So, we waited for the weakest person to get caught. Once he was the catcher, we started climbing the wall with our two legs stretched out, something spiderman would be proud of. After trying for a long time, he would remove the fold. By the time, he removes we will come down innocently explaining that we dodged in the floor and he has to grow a little bit tall to catch us.

The list is endless. I couldn't see anything of that sort that day. May be the small number of children in the marriage might be the reason. Even the children present were not playing. The workers arranged the chairs for the evening reception very easily. During my times, while playing catching game, we would turn the hall upside down. It would look like a mess created by an elephant in an republic day parade. May be i should start taking these things in a positive manner. May be children have matured. May be they know they look childish playing in a marriage hall. Wait a minute...aren't they supposed to look like that?