‘This summer let us go to my ancestral village”.

A proud father announced to his children. Proud because he had made his fortune in the city after toiling for 25 years in order to come out of the shadow cast by the upbringing he had received from his own parents who belonged to a village.

“Sure, we want to see your village; you have been talking about it for so many years but never expressed your concern or intent to take us there.  Surely, we shall go. A lot of our friends in school share their experience after visiting their grandparents”.

The two kids, born and brought up with the privilege of urban lifestyle and amenities of all kinds had never been to any village.  Their father never wanted to take them to the village he belonged to, or to any other village in India. for that matter. His narrative of a village was created through his own experience.  His parents had left the village after getting an opportunity to shift to this cosmopolitan city.  He was very young at that time, around 10 years old.  Primarily, he did his schooling in the village and continued it to a public school in the city when his parents shifted there.  After shifting from the village, he had been there few times with his parents.  His experiences were bad.  He hated to visit his village.  He hated the physical infrastructure; he hated the kind of discomfort and uneasiness they had to feel and face while staying in the village.  He disliked the way their neighbours in the village used to flock around, intruding into their privacy.  He and his siblings cried foul on seeing unhygienic ambiance and maintenance of their vicinity and the free movement of cattle around their place of stay in the village. There were several things that they despised altogether whether it was about people or the place as such.

He had declared that he was not going to visit the village ever.  Somehow this feeling drove him to work hard, build a career and earn more and enjoy the perks of leading a happy life in an urban area.  He had promised himself –

‘I am never going to let my kids ever visit this village’.

And he stood by this ever since he graduated from India and went for further studies in the US.  Initially he worked in a multinational company.  He married one of his batchmates from the management school he studied in and started his own venture after leaving the job.  He stood by his declaration of not visiting the village even after earning and building an identity of his own.  The couple provided all perks of the urban life to both of their children.  He never wanted his children to go through the pain and suffering he had faced in his childhood.

This was a happy family of four, husband (45 years of age), wife (44), daughter (13) and a son (11).  What did they not have – a big house in the capital city, lavish lifestyle, both kids going to an international school, own company, which had made fortune for themselves through their focus on hard work and aspiration to enjoy all pleasures of life.  The pleasures of money and market translated their life into all kinds of physical comforts and capacity to bring up their children in isolation of his shoddy past.

Suddenly he had realised that he needed to break his oath and show his children the village where he spent his early years of growing up.  His parents shifted to the urban area as his father had taken up a Government job.  This sudden realisation of taking the children to his village had come to him by seeing the behaviour of his growing kids.

“So the examinations are getting over by the end of March, we better plan to travel to the village for a few days after they get over.  Your mom is going to stay back”.

He wanted to show his children how privileged they were.  Whatever he had shared with his children about his life in the village was mostly about the lack of resources and the hardships he had faced.

“I would like both of you to see for yourselves, the place where I was born and started my schooling”.

The kids were excited.  They had only heard stories about villages.  They were experiencing a wealthy lifestyle and had seen their parents devoting themselves to earn more and fulfil all their demands.  They had spent their earlier vacations in the cities of developed countries.

The preparations for examinations were hindered by the very thought of the excitement of visiting their father’s village.  For the father, the hidden self was crying for its expression and the visible self was blocking the route.  He was also excited.  He wanted to teach a life lesson to his children. He wanted them to realise the importance of hard work, value of money in life and problems of poor. The reason was not that he wanted his kids to appreciate him for the kind of life they were leading but his intent was to make them realise how poorly the villagers lived.

Finally, the month of March ended with the completion of examinations.  And they made their way towards the village.  Three decades had passed since he last visited his village.  He was happy that he was taking his kids to show the place where he spent the days of his early years.  A feel of nostalgia was surrounding him all through the way that they travelled across the highways and town areas.

They reached the village and were made to stay with some of the relatives who had not moved away from the village in search of so called better pastures of life.  Not much had changed in the village with regard to the infrastructure, though the kind of exposure these villagers had in the present time was much different than the what they had three decades before.  The kids made their observations, shared their experiences and interacted with the people of the village.  They were preparing notes and wanted to share them with their friends in the school.  The kids were enjoying their stay and were making comparisons of their city life and the life of the villagers. After experiencing the village life for around a week they were heading back.

The happy family of four were ready for dinner and the parents were excited to learn about the experiences of their kids of the visit to the village.  The mother initiated the discussion and asked them how they felt after visiting the village.

“Did you enjoy the village life?”

“Of course, we did. Thanks a lot for taking us there”.

Both the kids responded in a synchronised fashion. The couple looked at each other with a look that communicated their unexpectedness at the kids’ reply but smiled, nevertheless.

“Can you explain your experience?”

The boy took the lead and said –

“Your village is great. The people were so cooperative and helpful. They have such a big playground and garden”.

The girl continued –

“It was such an amazing experience that after reaching back here, now I am thinking how privileged the kids are in the villages.  They have a blue sky, green fields, flowing river, and large houses.”

All the expectations of the parents were getting shattered. The girl continued –

“Dad, they get fresh fruits and vegetables. The quality of food that we ate in the village was too good. Though the condition of roads is not so nice, yet it is ok as many of them do not have vehicles to drive.  They do not have big malls, yet it is ok as most of the things they need are available’.

The parents were astonished to hear the versions of these kids of their village life experience.  The kids appreciated their father and thanked him –

“We are really thankful to you to have shown us the village.  It made us realise how poor we are and how rich they are”.

The parents had never expected this kind of reaction from their children.  Their perceptions were different.  The kids had their point of view, what was considered as valuable to them was not considered of that value to parents.

There are many things which money cannot buy.  The priorities of life are much different for different people, yet all want to lead is a happy life.  The physical comforts can be bought through money but they are not all that is important for life.