Weekend galatta

Taking time off.

- Dr Elsa L. Joel

The things that occupy parents’ whole being during weekends are laundry, vacuuming/dusting /cleaning, grocery, salon, homework and assignments, and indulging in socialising for the sake of an update on some social media. And after all these, everybody gets glued to their respective gadgets. In this age of digital revolution, even an outing to a scenic place doesn’t serve any purpose because we get busy recording events and clicking pictures instead of making up for lost times or soaking in the beauty that creation as such offers. There is no longer a time, even during those two special days, when parents and children enjoy just being together enjoying each other’s company over a heart to heart chat.

What is supposed to be an innate weekend trait should never be dominated by imposition. We are pretty vague about how weekends could turn out exciting in a city with overflowing landfills and bins, reducing green cover, demolition rubble and traffic jams, because road rules in Indian cities have a different meaning from the rest of the world and increasing pollution that we would prefer to stay indoors with our gadgets than venture out. Other than good education, life in a city has nothing much to offer except a few happening places here and there. Ever since the age of the idiot box dawned on us, small wonder our moods and priorities swing like a pendulum between total sensitivity and hypersensitivity.