Cormac McCarthy -- an American writer who is on the verge of turning 90 -- has recently announced that he will be coming out with two new books. The final book will serve as the epilogue, and it will be written entirely in dialogue.
Anyone who has tried to run after their own elusive Mrs Browns would know how hard it is to try to write a passable piece of prose to begin with, and here we have one of the oldest American writers coming out with something that is not only experimental, but if successful, has the potential add another feather to a cap that should be brimming with spring by now.
Alright, that was a one off example.
Furthermore, no one should be working at an age like this to begin with. You sweat your whole life making money for someone else, and you at least deserve a sunset under the Caspian sun, sipping on cocktails as you ride your private yacht. However, in this economy, a stable home and some sustainable amount to retire on is more realistic.
But the point still stands. When we look at the west, we see multiple people working into their twilight years, doing this and that. Even when people retire, they take their spouses out on the Mediterranean for some well-earned R and R. Unless someone is suffering from the impairment of the senses, they can even get up to speed with the latest technology and make a name for themselves -- with one of the most popular video game streamers, dubbed “Skyrim Grandma,” well past her prime.
Most importantly, no one needs to rely on other people for watering their plants or taking out the trash.
And then we have the curious specimen known as Bangladeshis. Most of our backs are out of commission by the time we hit our 40s. By the time we are 50, we are so inept in almost everything we do that we cannot even shut off the TV without some assistance. But no matter, we have our kids. We have been raising them for slaughter for this reason alone.
We Bengalis have a storied history of being descended from kings and sultans. It is only natural that we rely on other people for basic work, such as taking us to the rooftops. And if the kids refuse, well, we can always air our frustration through endlessly repeating the song Bridhastram or the movie Baghban
There is a marked difference when it comes to the filial relationship between the East and West. In the West, children are beings you bring into this world because you want to, and when it is time, the bird flies the nest. In the East, children are readymade robots that are bound to our every command. From being sent into the factories before we barely comprehend the world, to being dictated who we have to have sex with for the rest of our lives -- from masters to pimps, parents in Eastern countries are chameleons.
The only thing that they fail to properly play is the role of parents.
Before going further, I get it. Maybe it’s the geography, or maybe it’s the things we eat that are supposed to be good for us, according to big brother. Maybe we got the short end of evolution, and we are on average weaker than our western counterparts. But does that justify the kind of master-slave bondage that exists between the parents and the children? “We need help with the electronics. We need help going to the toilet. We are scared of living on our own,” I hear the old geezers cry out. But that doesn’t give you the right to impose on your children, as everyone in this world craves and deserves a life of their own.
Even if we discard that, what kind of life are you leading if you can’t even talk to the people of your age or do basic things on your own? If you need help with basic things like going to the bathroom -- well, before the age when you should be stationed in nursing homes -- what kind of a life is that, anyway?
I would wager that these things have become a given, specifically because of this culture in our country where people become emaciated after a certain age. To give my own example, my parents could rely on me to dispel their loneliness, or they can talk to their friends. I have never seen either my father and mother as happy as I see them when they talk to each other. Furthermore, when one is lonely, why shouldn’t they rely on their partners? I actually value my partner more than any potential children I might have; then why can’t the boomers do the same thing?
One can always argue that the boomers are merely following the path that was laid out in front of them. Study, get a job, get married, have kids, die. But let’s take a look at this from a different perspective. In industrial agriculture, cattle are often cooped up together inside cages and steel factories where they are to follow a set routine. Some of them specialize in nothing but giving birth to other cattle. Imagine your life with being cooped up in the same place with the sole intention of giving birth. After numerous trials like this, you just wait to die. Now imagine the factory as a house in Dhanmondi and Baridhara, and you will understand the importance of this analogy.
Speaking of chicken, I think a common experience for kids of our generation is the fact that whenever meat is cooked, all the best parts are served up for us. When we ask our parents why this is happening, they say that our happiness is their happiness. What kind of screwed-up logic is that? It again ties in with the analogy of the cattle and the unlimited births, where the only reason that the cattle exist is in order to produce more cattle.
If our parents’ sole existence in life is dedicated towards keeping the human population growing, I’m sorry to say, that is no life. There is a level of importance you have to place on your children if you decide to have them, but you don’t owe them your whole life, just like they don’t owe you theirs. If you disagree, then screw you, you enabler-of-toxic-relationships.
Then there is the flipside, that we need to take care of our parents because they have taken care of us. For all the controversial things that I have written in this column, this is something that I agree with. I agree, we should take care of our parents. But that is something that needs to be done out of love, and not a sense of forced loyalty. Our parents do a lot of things for us. When we are the most vulnerable in this world, they take care of us and enable us to pursue our own paths in life. But we have to remember that this is their duty, and not something that they are doing from the goodness of their hearts.
No one consents to being born, and if souls could see the trials and tribulations they would have to go through on this earth, they might have self-aborted themselves without a moment’s hesitation
It is a conscious act by the parents to bring kids into this world, kids who would die on the streets if there was no one to look out for them. If anyone has the balls to conceive, they are responsible for the upbringing of the child until a certain point in its life; because, let’s be honest, as cool as child labour is, you can’t hand a kid a shovel and a tobacco pipe when he is three.
Then there is the other flipside. We have already discussed that a lot of people are just following the culture when it comes to child rearing and retirement, and this is something that lacks any kind of agency from the individual parents. I believe that this is a big reason why they suffer during their “olden” years. Psychologists have already put out the theory that the Indian personality is not as robust as the Western personality, due to our different ways of upbringing. I think these applies for boomers as well. You live your life according to your forefathers and expect your children to take care of you, only for your kids to bail, because duh!
If this culture of ancestral legacy were changed, then surely, we would have our own McCarthys writing their own blood sprawled epic providing insight into violence and the human consciousness. If the Americans have the frontier, then we have Brahmanbaria, and I think the latter is deadlier than the forme
Lastly, expecting your kids to be there for you in old age is morally reprehensible. Again, it is fine if it is done due to love. But coercing them into serving you because you took care of them as infants is nothing short of slavery. At least slaves have the faculties to live a full life without their masters. But kids can do nothing without their parents, a situation in which kids are brought into because of their parents. It’s as if parents make a clone that they know are going to be dependent on them, and then charge them into indentured slavery indefinitely. It’s like the American healthcare system, where your son dies and you are handed half a million dollars.
Now that I’ve mentioned that, there might be fewer differences between the East and the West to begin with.
I’m going to end this with a real story that happened to another famous author. Ryunosuke Akutagawa was a modernist trailblazer that was part of a group of writers that brought Japanese literature to global attention. He was swapped around his relatives because his mother suffered from quite a severe mental illness after his birth. After writing around 150 short stories and becoming a legend well before his 30s, he took his life at the age of 35 because he was afraid that he had inherited his mother’s illness, a fear that haunted him throughout his life.
“I have a vague sense of anxiety about the future.”
These were his last words.
Nafis Shahriar is an Editorial Assistant at Dhaka Tribune.
