Loosening Family Bonding in Indian Families

In the last decade or so, I have seen, experienced and felt how family bonding has slipped to new lows. Well not just my family, but in the lives of many of my friends too. As a person who likes to have a close and helpful family network, I see this as a failure in all fronts.

I know there’re are many who don’t seems to be affected by the isolation in family and the growing independence in family life!

Some how, I can’t grasp at the fast pace change in our behavior. So, who can we blame. Well, do we have to blame  the rise of busy-state of life, eagerness to earn, fast-paced work, or the self-centered life of everyone or the hectic life schedule.

Or is it, related to the constricted life, much away from the life of their father or grand father’s generation..

So, what’s the fall out of this modern life. The so called typical Indians are suddenly acting like westerners. They are getting more into themselves, and their shrinking  circle of friends and relatives.

Recently, I had this experience. I gifted a lady a cake. She said that her husband don’t eat cake make with egg. Then I said that she can gift to her apartment friends or neighbors. She said she doesn’t have any acquaintance or friends in the apartment. It seems she is staying in that apartment for the last 10 years.

Oh, is this the so called Indian values we been hearing about.

So, my quest here is this – look for ways to build bonds, connection and bring that human feeling between family, friends and neighbors.

Here’s are few ways to bring that good-old family feeling and caring.

1) Let Family Members Take up Food Serving Job at Marriages. As soon as we fix the marriage, one of the first things that’s outsourced is catering. In any marriage, the right selection of caterer is important as both the parties look for a good feat on the marriage day. In earlier days, this was mostly done in-house. I still have faint memories of how everyone in the household gather to do a part of the cooking or arranging of the house. Only major work will be outsourced and rest is shared by uncles, aunts, cousins, and neighbors.

So, if we look at today’s family, as a host we don’t want to burden anyone for anything. We have a tendency to do it all by ourself or with the help of paid assistance. We let money do the job, rather than asking someone for assistance.

Ask and it shall be given, seek and you shall find
Here’s my plan to bring back a part of the old system. First, you have to find all the tasks in a marriage. From all the tasks, pick small tasks which could be done by a small team of people. For instance, you can pick the task of filling water, or serving payasam or giving second help.

Or, if time permits, assemble a team to make halwa or a sweet dish from the scratch. So, once you decide on the task, find out if there are people willing to volunteer their time. Find the right people, and tell them their job on the D day. Rope in the elders too and also the young turks in the family.

Benefit:  Well, in the end all those who joined hands for the preparation of dish will take back some memory of the activity, instead of just being a spectator for the marriage. As an added motivation or a proof of memory, keep a Polaroid camera read and take picture of their role, and get it signed by the bride and groom.

2) Create a wish-list
   Well we all have a long list of things to buy, to experience. Now, imagine we have  public wishlist of things each family member would like to buy or posses. And, how every year, at a particular time, people can voluntarily contribute to buy the goods in the list. It could be from a bag to a cycle or something even big

3) Sponsor a learning session
   Apart from our degree, we like to keep sharpening our skills. So, imagine the family takes imitative to sponsor a class. Well, it could range from helping a person to buy a website domain to learn cooking or baking. There should be a catch to it. A benefactor to such a learning class should pass it on to others in the family. Meaning, a person who receives the money to enroll for the class should do the same at a later stage for another person. The intention is to carry it forward.

What do you think of these ways to build bond, renew the connection and make people closer? Will it work or is it hard work for people to take this idea forward?