A letter to Kids-2
Patna,Bihar,India
30 June,2012
My Dear Kids,
Welcome you back on board. I hope that you enjoyed thoroughly the most awaited
summer break. I believe, the first issue of Baal Chaupaal would have been quite
exciting for you.
In my previous talk we had shared about physical and mental dimension of
health. This time, we would share about its social dimension. You know, human
being is a social animal. During the process of evolution, man came out to be
superior to other animals. But like other animals on the earth, man never left
its group. In parallel with its anatomical and physiological evolution, man’s
social evolution took place in a tremendous way. Man learnt about the
importance and benefits of living in a family, in a community and above all in
a society. Imagine a day, when you will be left alone in a new place where
there will be no one from your family, friends and colleagues. There will be
none to talk with you, to listen to you, to share with you. Every amenity will
be provided to you except a single human being. How long you could enjoy with television?
How long you could mange with books? How long you could play with computer?
Imagine one day your power supply to your home went off. Your computer’s
central processor got a break-down. And you finished reading all of the books
supplied to you. You might say now that you could go outside to give a call to
an electrician, to buy some new books and to go for a technician for repairing
of computer. But I have told that there is not a single human being other than
you. Now imagine that situation.
In a human society every work is
done by a different individual. A doctor can’t do the work of an engineer or
vice versa. You can’t do the work of your teacher. I can’t match your dear
parents in giving you a lot of affection and guidance in time which you need
most. So in our daily living, we depend on someone for our cause and comfort.
After a long tiring exercise at school we switch on our TV for a cartoon show.
Think of those who have done so much hard work on drawings, sketches, animation
and finally in production of a cartoon movie. Therefore, in a community we are
dependent of each other. The attributes of living in a community is learnt from
the family during our formative and early years of life. Family is a subset of
the community. Our learning about community begins at our home. The morale and character
we have in ourselves are acquired from our family. Being brought up in a good
family and living with good members like parents, grandparents, uncles and
aunts, cousins have positive effect on our own lives. In a joint family we have
the opportunity to live with members other than our own parents. Now a day, due
to changing socio-economic conditions, nuclear families are seen in large
numbers. In a nuclear family dependent unmarried children live with their own
parents where other members are absent. Nuclear families have their own
importance like joint family. In a nuclear family, parents have to take more
responsibility, physical and psychological stress in rearing up their children.
Every member in a nuclear family enjoys more comfort and freedom unlike joint
family. Even belonging to a nuclear family, we have a great responsibility to
our own community and society. We should realise the importance of other
fellows and neighbours living with us in our community.
You may ask me how we could know
that every individual in a community could play a role and have positive
effects on our life? Five fingers of your hand are not of same shape and size.
Like that you do not have the same quality that your friend has. If you are
good in mathematics, your friend is very good in English. If you are a good
orator, your friend is a very good singer. Living in a society has a great
advantage. We get an opportunity to know about others’ good quality when we
interact with them. My dear friends, I would like to suggest you that you
should try to inculcate not to emulate the good characters and attributes of
your fellows when you come across with them in your daily life. Chewing
tobacco, smoking and drinking alcohol are very bad habits. They are very much
dangerous to health. Even your father has many good attributes to follow and
inculcate, you must never inculcate his bad habit of smoking cigarettes, if he
is smoking. You should know that in many countries the adolescents (of age
group 10-19 years) have become addicted to alcohol, tobacco and other dangerous
drugs in very early and important phase of life. I myself had seen two boys of
age around 11-12 years smoking cigarettes together on the street of Agra, the
city of Taj Mehal. You ask yourself from whom they inculcate these dangerous
habits??? Answer may be parents or friends or teachers or their favourite film
actors etc. During adolescence one commits a lot of mistakes out of curiosity
and anxiousness. We should take the help of parents and teachers to sort out
our queries and anxieties. You should always take care to filter out the good
characters and attributes of every person to inculcate in your own life. Your
own home is a big school to learn many a things. Start learning the good
attributes of your parents from today.
I
hope you would like to share the joy and experience you had in this summer
holidays with us through writings to Baal Chaupaal. After summer break you have
a lot of tasks ahead at school and home. I believe and pray God to guide you in
completing those tasks. Next time I would like to talk about “God”, the creator
of this universe. Now let me say ‘good bye’ to all of you.
Yours
lovingly,
Uncle Prabir.
