Joy Of Family Reunion

As social animals, humans need to socialize to feel genuinely comfortable, widely acknowledged, and motivated. For the longest time, concepts such as friendships, relationships, brotherhoods, and sisterhoods have been keeping humanity intact in the face of an ever-changing world and its never-ending demands.

Over the last couple of centuries, human evolution has reached a pinnacle, which in turn has brought about unprecedented changes that require people to adapt and remain relevant over time. In days gone by, evidently, a limit in the movement of people could be invariably observed. The inevitable outcome of a one-of-a-kind society led to a rise in people's contentment and made people hell-bent on nourishing the close-knit family bond and deepening the emotional connection.

There existed an urgency of having to be with loved ones to feel protected and immensely supported, which, while it allowed connections to be deepened to the core, I believe it also gave rise to highly reliant people with restricted access and controlled freedom.

In contradiction to the accepted ethos of bygone days, perhaps, for what it's worth, the bar of today is much higher than a decade ago. Understandably, with academics taking a toll, coupled with the poor road network in the context of Nepal, and the looming peril of natural disasters in different seasons, one can assume the valid reasons for not making repeated visits by students living away from their families. But mind you, I have come across many youth who, with time being no constraint, resorted to leaving their parents unvisited, which, right off the bat, causes more trouble than it's worth.

Recently, I stumbled across my cousin, who, for the last couple of years, has been living in a rented room in Kathmandu for his bachelor's degree. On one fine day, I unexpectedly met him, and having previously heard of my uncle's heart-wrenching story of feelings of isolation due to my cousin's failed visits, I rudely confronted him with what I thought was an easy question about his last parental visit. My jaw was on the floor with his knee-jerking response.  

The reasons for his two years of abandonment did not add up with his seemingly happy-go-lucky sort of lifestyle. Unsurprisingly, I have not seen him do well academically, and if that were not enough, he hasn't been employed yet. Regardless, I bid him farewell with the advice of visiting his parents at the earliest.

Societies with a gap between two generations struggle to move forward collectively, creating a fragmented environment and dividing different demographics from coming to terms with shared principles. Realistically, it is highly unlikely for a family to be together all the time in this competitive and highly globalized world. Against all the odds, overseas children should at least try visiting their parents back home. Doing so not only makes parents profoundly joyous but also enables family reunion, togetherness, and makes both parties closer, understood, and highly prioritised.

On the other hand, for those in a stone's throw distance, they are morally obliged to take stock of their family's situation, and they can fill the gap by doing something as basic as inviting their parents over to their current residence or, at the very least, calling someone from the family and letting them know of their present circumstances. The more distance there is between parents and children, the more misunderstandings, lack of clarity, and broken trust there will be. To sum it up, come what may, equally important is quality family time and intergenerational bonding in this technology-led, AI-driven world.