Joseph Lewis D’Silva
I sit alone in my gallery and stare in the open, for at my age, there are fewer and fewer friends still surviving to give me company. My thoughts wing back to the days when “Carreira Regular” ran on our roads and we pedalled about in the village on bicycle, where the coconut trees reach the blue sky and vast green fields ring the town. I remember, I remember the dinner table togetherness, which swell in my brain and flash before my eyes.
Yes, in those days, the family surrounded the dining table for the meals and enjoyed the dinner table togetherness. But nowadays, that blending of joining together has slowed down, if not completely destroyed. Gone are the days when this family unity before the dinner table used to start giving thanks to God before and after meals. Gone are the days of dinner time togetherness of the household. Gone are the dinner table tête-à-tête of parents with their brood.
TV has given knockout blow to the dinner table assemblage. It is because dinner time, clashes with TV serials. These serials cater to all the age groups. Therefore, a few hands take up their dinner plates and sit before the TV which is called the ‘idiot box” by its critics; but it has the power to make people slavishly sit before it for hours. Some maintain the togetherness outdoors, with friends in pairs or in small groups; as modern individuals have developed an appetite for fast food. It is modern; “Sab chalta hai” attitude. The harmonious talk at dining table is forgotten.
The dinner table tittle-tattle embraced joys and sorrows of the home; parents controlling their brood against foolish risks; and explaining the misery that awaits them when they behave like the prodigal son in the Bible. Dinner-table conversation was something like counselling therapy. It was interaction a unique link of understanding.
Oh, what a pleasure the TV gives, and also destructive effect it brings! It gets into our home, sights and sounds from all over the world removing long distances; dissolving the division of people into classes; melting the separation of a country into regions and thus bringing about national togetherness.
TV regales us in our sitting room with hilarious anecdotes. It gives us information about things happening around the world. It also ends up with character crisis for it also shows different ways of eating the forbidden fruit.
Oh, what a fine mess, also, the TV causes! When the viewer’s mind is repeatedly bombarded with negative entertainment; even a balanced mind often feels right in leading a life outside marriage and thinks that something is wrong with him/her, if he/she does not imitate the TV serial. It becomes a case of “repeated false becoming true”. Thus the very foundation of marriage is threatened in many cases.
Just as the one who wants to build his body needs to exercise, so, must we, bring back the dinner table togetherness in favour of our children; for their wings of character to grow and for them to stretch wide as they fly into the competitive world in their journey of life. The togetherness before the TV is like drops of poison in the mind, which causes death of purity, if we do not analyse and distinguish between what is good and bad.
