To start with, I would like to mention that this post is not an anti-alcoholism post. I myself love my Rum once or twice a week.
So here we go....
I recently visited my hometown during Diwali break and like most of us do, started calling couple of good old childhood buddies left in town. I normally do this every year and almost every day till the time I am in that town we have a blast.
But this time something struck my mind. Its the culture or you can say the process that has been setup in the middle aged adults of the small towns(I am saying small towns because in big metros half of the life goes in traveling so productivity is anyways 50%). Every day most of the offices get over by 6-7 PM and like our parents used to do, this middle aged adult is all set to go home, which usually is just 10-15 min away. But the difference is, our previous generation either used to directly come home or used to go for a round of badminton, squash, cricket, yoga..etc etc, (now hear is the worry) this generation is directly going either to a bar or a stand alone wine shop and from 6:30-7 PM to around 7:30-8 PM they are good 3-4 pegs down and then they go home. After this they are niter in position to do something creative/constructive for themselves or family(forget about the nation).
Well now as long as its one off case and regulated drinking its fine, but the problem is 70-80% of this generation is doing it every day and its really taking a hit on mental and physical health of not only the generation but also the nation.
And according to me that's the plan, one thing we are not understanding is that it is a very planned sabotage of the mental and physical health of the nation by targeting the middle aged adults who are actually responsible for running it.
Increase in packages, lifestyle, so called increase in "Standard of living" is all part of this. Our previous generations never had time or even economy to do this on a daily basis and hence they were fit and focused (well focus was in right direction or no is a different topic to discuss of course, but at least they were). I am sorry to say that the definition of "Standard of living" taught to us was completely misleading.
Well I would say this is just an example, we are doing so many things wrong to spoil the future of our next generations. The bottom line is, we need to find the right balance of what we do to "OURSELVES" to make sure our next generation gets a good future.
Since childhood, I have been a fitness enthusiast (of course because of my parents) and now I enjoy drink as well. But my aim is to strike the right balance between the two. So my urge to all my dear middle aged adults is that now is the time to think and together start walking towards healthy lifestyle. Else, tougher times are coming up for our next generation because as of now the plan is getting successful.
Always an Indian
Neelabh Thakore
