The Lost Generation- Book Reflections
A long time ago, I decided to not write a book review. Who am I to review? The author may have put blood & sweat into writing and all we do is comment on how the grammar or choice of words could have been better?
I want to reflect on what I read. Why reflections?
Read this line, “..Sometimes I wish they gave us milk or buttermilk. My son has never tasted milk,” Feroja laments.
Does it not make you shut the book & stare outside? It did to me. And this wasn’t the first one in just one of the 11 stories from the book The Lost Generation- Chronicling India’s Dying Professions by Nidhi Dugar Kundalia.
The book came out in 2015. Before coming to this line, I read, “…no, we don’t keep girl children, madam”. And here I thought we are done being regressive.
Wrong. So wrong I was. Social media updates limit your understanding of hidden realities. The algorithm controls what you see and offers more of what you could possibly consume.
During my PGDM, our professor Dr Kausthub Dhargalkar asked me and my friend to make a list of the professions that existed 10 years ago and now they don’t.
An exciting one where we did picked up a few in our surrounding and with some secondary research arrived at a list. I look back after having read this book in one sitting and smirk- how naive was I to not go into the depth of why the professions came into the place, was it passed down from generations and why is it dying?
Nidhi brings out many moments in the 11 professions she writes about. The stories are fascinating and poignant at the same time. For generations, a Bisthiwala, Godna tattoo maker, Ittarwala, Storytellers, Boat makers have followed a profession.
Learning by doing
One of the essential takeaway from the stories. They learnt by observing, practising, experimenting, failing and getting up again. Not much importance is given to formal education.
Discipline has no substitute
The Urdu scriber takes an entire day to write one quote in his calligraphy style that takes a toll on his lower back & neck. He practised the different styles and took almost a decade to gain mastery.
The folk storytellers of Andhra need to remember the stories orally. They aren’t written down anywhere. Their mentor- a lady- remembered as much as 10 epic stories and narrated it as if she had gulped every single word.
The boatmakers of Balagarh spend time understanding the wood, its properties and how to carve it.
The Ittarwala near Char Minar has to religiously experiment by creating new fragrances. Many times the fragrances aren’t up to the mark. On the flip side sometimes he hits a jackpot when he creates a magic fragrance!
What Next?
The genealogy keepers of Haridwar have complex accounting systems where they keep family records of numerous families by careful accounting. The words written in bahi are taken seriously even by the courts in India. An interesting thing- the one who is being interviewed says that his sons are settled in Bangalore and won’t be taking up this profession. Whereas his nephew will takeover. Maybe the nephew stayed back not choosing to go elsewhere
Poignant Ending
No one believes their children or grandchildren will continue their professions. An air of hopelessness surrounds their lives and they take it up as a sense of duty towards the profession handed over to them by their ancestors.
What to ponder?
- Because our skills are constantly getting upgraded, will have a very transactional relationship with our jobs?
- Will the focus be on us- as individuals who are constantly learning/unlearning new skills and try being a horizontal contributor rather than being good at only 1 thing.
- Will we miss grasping the nuances because the focus will be on how many more things we are able to pull off rather than sit & scratch our brains to find out what’s wrong exactly?
