August 15, 2004

These days, family ties seem to be not as strong as they used to be in the past. Times have changed, and so have we

FLIPPING through old albums of my parents’ childhood takes me to a different world — a world that can only be imagined. The world where my grandparents, granduncles and grandaunts are young and dressed very differently and my parents, uncles and aunts are children, dressed in frocks and shorts and lined up for the photographs. It is very difficult to imagine these people as young kids. After all, when you saw your grandparents, parents and people of their generation, they were not middle-aged people or kids. So, for you they have always been like this and to imagine them younger requires a strong imagination.

Surprisingly, most of these pictures have so many of my relatives crammed into one photograph that the background is hardly visible. Looks like there were more people than what the size of the picture allowed. You could have half a dozen of such pictures with not a single person common in them.

Going through one such album one day, I came across a photograph that had so many people in it — from elders to toddlers — that the photographer who managed to fit them in one picture impressed me. I was curious to know who each of them were since what I have seen in my relatives, I couldn’t think of so many people who would be so closely related that they would be in one photograph. Nowadays, who cares about anyone beyond the first cousin or immediate uncle or aunt? When my mother pointed them out, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had questions like, “How come he/she is here? He/she is not related.” “Do they know each other?” “Are they close relatives?” And the answer was not what I had expected.

All these photographs show the strength of the relations between these people, which makes me wonder what they had that we don’t. Why is it that our relationship with our relatives does not remotely resemble theirs?

Let’s analyze how these relations have changed over a period of time. For the purpose of clarity, I have divided the relatives in four generations. If you are between 15 and 25 years of age and not the eldest among your group of siblings and cousins then the following will most probably be applicable to you as it is, since you will be in the third generation. Otherwise, you may have to skip either the first or the last generations or re-number them.

The first generation is that of grandparents, granduncles, and grandaunts. They have more affection and respect for others as compared to the current generation, whether of their own age or younger. Since they are good, they consider everyone the same.

The second generation is that of parents, aunts and uncles. This generation has so many varieties that it is not possible to be general. At one end there are those who followed the footsteps of their parents and consider relations, whether near or far, important. On the other extreme, there are those for whom relatives are a bother. They have either no connections with them or have kept them only as social obligations. And to top it all, they are proud of it. The rest are somewhere in between the two extremes.

The third group is that of siblings and cousins (first, second, third). They are truly the creation of the modern time, influenced by the foreign culture, hardly influenced by the early generations. This generation is completely different from the first. It shows that something did happen after the first generation to make this one the way it is. “Relatives, I’d rather spend my time with friends than listen to them,” is the slogan for most of them. Of course, this is an extreme statement but my point is that these people do not consider relatives in the same manner as the first generation, not even remotely.

The fourth generation is that of nieces and nephews. Well, they are too young to talk about. But looking at the way their parents (generation three), apparently there is no hope of things getting any better.

Why did I categorize relatives this way? I just wanted to see how the strength and importance of family relations have changed over a period of time. Is it the effect of modern times or the change in people’s attitude? What I write here is not based on an extensive study spread over a long period and it cannot be generalized and applied to ‘all’ the families in the same manner. I have written it because I have observed it and have noticed some rapid changes, especially in the last few years.

People don’t meet relatives the way they used to earlier. They have so many excuses for that. First is the lack of time. “Life is so busy nowadays; we don’t get time to meet people.” Or it is the distance, “Actually, distances have increased so much, it is not possible to go everywhere.” But on the other hand the same people spend hours sifting in front of the TV. And the shopping centre that is located at the opposite end of the city suddenly comes closer.

Whether it is a relative or some stranger, we should treat people the way we want them to treat us. It is very selfish to expect others to respect us when we continue to humiliate them. Or expect them to treat us better than others since we are their “relatives” while not doing the same when it’s our turn. This is missing from today’s families. People take their relatives for granted and expect them to behave in a certain manner. But this expected behaviour is unidirectional. Initially when I observed it, I thought maybe I was being too critical of my own family. But when I heard what others had to say, it seemed to happen almost everywhere with different degrees of strength.

Materialism has taken hold of our society including family ties. Money has become everything in life. If you are rich then you expect to be treated differently. If you can afford to have a huge house, own as many cars as there are family members or even more, give your children the most expensive education available then you are superior to others. It does not mean that earlier generations were not rich. The difference is that as compared to them, today people ‘know’ that they are privileged and do not hesitate to show it. The rich relatives can behave anyway they want but when the not-so-rich relatives do something they are criticized. Money has always been there, whether it is generation one or generation four, but the realization that money makes all the difference came later. The question is: when? One possibility is that of generation two since that is where there is no generalization. Of course I could be wrong. It might have started earlier or later.

Somebody once commented that those who live abroad know the real value of relationships than those who live in Pakistan. This is the reason they look forward to spending their vacations in Pakistan. Does being geographically far apart make any difference in the level of affection one has for the family? Is the affection directly proportional to the distance? That is, the more the distance, the greater the affection. In my opinion, this fact cannot be generalized nowadays. It all depends on the thinking of the parents and what they have taught their children. I’ve seen families who are quite enthusiastic about their visit to Pakistan. Then there are those where only parents look forward to meeting all the relatives. The other extreme is where visiting Pakistan is considered an obligation in the beginning, which loses its value later on when children grow up and become independent. Even parents lose all the interest.

To quote one of my uncle/aunt (can’t reveal much about this person, otherwise I will be in big trouble), who was always advising us about the importance of relatives, “You should meet your relatives, they are everything. Friends are temporary; they have no interest in your welfare unless they want something from you. But relatives are not like this, they are not selfish ...” A sound advice, I had to agree. And they would have impressed me if after few days they had not contradicted themselves. On asking about their son’s visit abroad, whether he was staying with his cousins, their reply was, “He is staying with his friends. He does not like to stay with relatives. He says that friends are better and I agree with him. Relatives complain so much ...” Now which version should one believe? And who is to blame for this, the parents or the child?

Another uncle of mine said something very interesting on the same subject. I was planning to go abroad so everybody was saying that I would not have any difficulty since I have so many relatives there to help me. When I told my uncle which city I was planning to go to, he said, “Why do you want to go there? You will meet the same faces that you see here everyday. It will not be any different. You should instead go to some other city where the chances of meeting them are zero.” It was all said in good humour, no offence to anyone.

It’s no wonder that when I looked at albums from the past 10 years, there seemed to be too few people at one gathering to justify taking so many pictures, unless you were interested in the detailed view of the background. And as for repetition, you hardly have more than two pictures with some person not repeated.

An uncle of mine, while referring to me, said, “We should be careful of what we say in front of her, she may write about it.” And after this article, a lot more of my relatives will consider his suggestion. Or may be not. They would simply blame me of being disrespectful to elders, being “anti-relatives” or being biased towards one of my parents’ family and writing against the others.

The last time I wrote something, a lot of people took offence, though I had no intention of doing so. But almost everybody was stricken by the ‘guilty conscience’ and took everything personally. But there should be no reason for that. I am not a fantasy storywriter who can create fictitious examples; I take my examples from real life with some modifications of course. When I write about relatives here, I write about myself too, since I am also somebody’s relative.

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