When one organism lives on and depends on another living organism, we may call it a parasite. The other day I was going on a nature trek and noticed a small organism living on a leaf and it struck me about our life as parasites. Do we live as dependants more than necessary ? May be it is true and worth thinking about. We all are born in a family as kids and are fully dependant on our parents. We continue to stay with them till we complete our education through school and college. If given a chance, we like

to continue with them for the rest of our lives. We depend on them more than they depending on us.

As life progresses, we get married and sometimes are compelled to move away from our homes due to the employment of our spouse or otherwise. We start living on our own. Life becomes more independent and we miss the umbrella of protection of our parents. One of the interesting learning in life is that we vie with each other to learn the western society almost in every aspect of our life. We want to be modern in our outlook and physically comfortable in our material life. This is the positive part of our aping the western traditions. However, we conveniently do not copy things which does not suit us.

In the developed world, children move out of their homes when they are teenagers and start living on their own. They do errands and live life on backpacks. They fund their own education and do not depend on their parents for their livelihood. This is worth copying from the west. This phenomenon makes you independent in the true sense of the word. Further, it helps you realise the value of money earned at an early stage of your life. It helps you get grounded and find your way up the hard way in life.

In the Indian context, since we continue to stay with our parents, we are fully dependant on them. As we grow up and get married and move out of home in quest of our career we realise the value of independence and the hard work and toil one has to put into to earn it. Another interesting insight is that once we move out of our parents homes we believe our duties and responsibilities are over. We take care of our spouse and kids. We take care of our parents or in laws only as a courtesy and leave it to them to take care of themselves. Sometimes we also believe that supporting them financially is our way of taking care of them.

In my view, this is where we need to learn from our rich Indian heritage. We have to consider it our privilege to be able to take care of our parents and parents in law during their old age. No amount of financial support to them can repay our non financial debt to them. They have sacrificed their lives and comforts to make us what we are today and the least we can do is to take care of them financially and more importantly emotionally. It is at this juncture, we need to introspect and not ape the traditions from other cultures.

Dependance and independence is a vicious circle in our lives. We start with dependance and then become independent and end our lives as dependants again. What we do to others comes back to us. Let us serve our elders unconditionally without expecting anything in return. This will reflect our true spirit of independence. It is worth emulating from our rich Indian traditions and showcasing to the world as well.

Let us start today.

S Ramesh Shankar