Blog@GraceJunction

For those who came in late, here is a recap of what has transpired very recently at Soul Café. I was meeting up with my old friend after a very long time and during the course of it we discussed about the various recent trends among teenagers in India and as we were talking about it a youngster chanced upon our conversations and joined in. The conversation then went on to explore evolution and creation and then trying to understand a creator’s mind in allowing death, pain, suffering and sickness into his creation. All these took a lot of time and had taken a heavy toll on me and we took time out for dinner.

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For those who came in late, here is a recap of what has transpired very recently at Soul Café. My friend, Kumar, works in a premier market research agency and we were meeting after a very long time, and our conversations at the Soul Café happened to dwell on the modern trends among the teens, especially on the ‘skippies’. In the middle of this discussion, a seemingly well-read teen snooped into our talk. After a while, when my friend had left to finish off with some urgent commitments, this young man, Rahul, and I had a fairly long talk and it revolved mainly around evolution and creation. (more…)

I was meeting my friend who working with a premier market research agency, after a very long time. We discussed the case of ‘skippies’ and the discussion took some interesting twists. My friend interrupted the discussions to leave. He had to finish off his business engagements and he promised to return later in the evening to continue our talk. As he walked to the door, he walked past several ‘skippies’ inside the café, and he looked back at me and smiled. I was planning to leave when this young man, apparently having overheard our conversations came over to me to talk.
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Skippies is the market research term for young teens with earnings and (or) purchasing power, and there is no mistaking their influence in the buying decision anymore. And it is not just restricted to products that they buy for personal use. Whether it’s a car, a TV, breakfast cereal or gum, the young members in the family have a definite view on most purchase decisions.

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It was evening and I had to walk back home and rush to a meeting in the evening. However, the café owner held me back. I didn’t want to lose an opportunity to at least make a better acquaintance with him hoping that perhaps he would offer me a regular discount, whenever I came there in the future. He asked me about my vocation and why my apparent subjects were always youngsters. Now, he was the owner of the café and it had mostly youths frequenting it but yet, surprisingly, he expressed that they were the most difficult age group to understand. I gathered that he was possibly struggling with a troubled teen in his own household and bingo. When I asked him about it, he told me about his son, who according to him, was going through, a teenage crisis. He was not studying and was becoming progressively more rebellious with each passing day.

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As we walked down the road to the café, the young man with me started revealing more facts about his life. His father was an elder in the church and was a man of outstanding testimony. While he grew up, he always looked up to his father and proudly said to himself that one day he would become like his father.

This is the experience of most boys while they are still growing. Somehow I feel that most fathers have let down their kids. I mean, they have not kept up to their children’s expectations and should I frankly say, they have not kept up to God’s expectations in what they teach, in the way they live, in their love, their faith, and their purity. I am not being judgmental. I include myself in this ineffective league of fathers, who have not kept up to the standards as God expects all fathers to keep. The result: a generation of renegade and drifting youngsters, who lack proper role models to look up to or emulate.

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I met this brilliant guy at one of the camps organized by a leading organization working among students. After a talk on teen issues, he came to me wanting to discuss a few things. As always, I was careful to be as friendly and relaxed as possible so that he didn’t get uncomfortable, even faintly.

He said he was spending a couple of hours everyday on the Internet and he somehow wanted to reduce it drastically. He tried several means but failed. I asked him his principal activity on the Internet and he told me that it was emailing and chatting. He said, he was not at all performing well on the academic front and that he could not overcome temptations.

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My friend’s son has been nagging his dad since several days to buy him a mobile handset. I think the boy is justified to an extent. My friend had promised to buy his son the handset, provided he got a first class in his matriculation. Now my friend regrets, why he didn’t put a higher goal of say, a distinction. The boy’s classmates all flaunt their gizmos, just outside the school campus, since they are not permitted to take a handset inside. The boy feels Jurassic and now he also feels cheated.

He is close to me and one day he asked me to talk to his dad about this issue, and so I called his dad to the downtown café as the boy and all were very dear to me. My friend was dot on time as usual. There is a lot to learn from the secular market place too. My friend smiled at me, as if saying, I knew you would be late. Before getting into any other talk and also to avoid his teasing me on my being late, I pounced on him with my concern, as if that were the greatest need of the hour. Surely it was, at that time.

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