The Teenage Days

As will I be turning 20 within few months and would hence enter into the amazingly exuberant stage of adulthood, I would hence like to revisit and ponder upon the lifeline of a ‘Teen’, right from the time he enters into the adolescence stage and draws himself through the drastically enormous number of changes he engrosses till is he ready to mature into an ‘Adult’. Through these years, a child witnesses himself changing delicately both in terms of his physical strata and his mental or emotional state. Also does the rearing and teaching that is imparted to the youth determines the adult that he finally becomes both psychologically and morally.

Strict and careful rearing has been witnessed since the mythological era, when children were sent to Gurukuls and Ashrams under the guidance of sacred and reverent saints where they would virtue and learn the attributes of respect, knowledge and self-control. The ashrams admitted students irrespective of the background they came from, that is, the son of a king and that of some Amir at his court would both sleep under the same roof (until he was a Brahmin). The students practised religion and knowledge simultaneously dignified with respect and praise for their gurus at the extreme.

But as has time changed, so has the rearing and emotional plight of the teens. Children find it difficult to respect their elders and would further exercise their own will and wants ignoring any of the guidance they are adhered to receive at this crucial age. This exercise of ignorance is the root cause behind all the happenings and deeds these going-to-be-adults commit, misleading them to fall into the dangerous hole of trauma dug in front of them. Teens break into thieves, murderers and rapists out of the sheer demand for lust and emotional satisfaction. The result is many more Juveniles, terrorists and militants. Several terrorists organisations such as the ISIS and the Al-Qaida hence prey on youths who can easily be mislead and pushed into such evil deeds. Students who are bound to make their career at this crucial age eventually break them. There is no doubt why we hear of the numerous crimes being committed these days, mostly by youths. The Parliament recently passed the Juvenile Justice Bill, redefining the age of a Juvenile to the tender age of 16 years instead of 18!

So, what has led to the youth getting deviated from his bound path to improve and grow into a responsible citizen? Why are youths aged 15 and 16 turning into rapists and murderers? Why do the children eventually grow up hating their own parents and elders? In this article would we try to understand the problems that the adolescent faces and how should he frame the methods to tackle these ever-growing menaces, rising out healthily into the individual he is ideally bound to become.

Firstly, the disrespect and hatred that students enrage towards their parents is an important issue to attend to. This roots back to the irresponsible and free rearing the parents these days adhere to. The parents should right from their childhood teach them the important ethics of discipline and self-control. Also, must the parents account to their sudden demands and changes explaining them of all the critical topics associated with the adolescence period.

The rapidly growing technology and Internet has also initiated and flamed their growing instincts and desires. Youths are left open to sources and information irrelevant and inadequate to them at this age. Here does the job of the parent arises, where should they guide with the dos and don’ts when online. Moreover, have social networking sites gained much of their lucid attention, their precious time hence put to garbage.

Education is, and will always be the only way to literate and guide them through for better understanding and maturity which they demand at this tender period. It guides the youth to the positive path enriching him will all the necessary and adequate knowledge that they must acquire. The awareness and urgency for literacy is the task of the government to drastically reduce the number of Juvenile criminals.

The practice of self-control and the inducing of positive vibes and energies may further deter them from the follies and ill-sagas that characterise this growing period. Activities like yoga and meditation may serve the purpose. They must be taught that the short-instincts of the present time may hamper the future of their mature times.

Our modern society is defined by the present youth, most of them in their teens. Henceforth, the progress and betterment of theirs would help us build the ideal society we visualise of. The modernisation and civilisation that seems at pace during the present time must not deter the youth from the path they are envisaged to. Instead should they be conceived for the betterment and growth of the present day youth glorifying the society to the purposeful future that lies ahead to us.

The Diary of Anne Frank

“Had he heard something after all and now wanted to check out this mysterious-looking bookcase?  It seemed so, since he kept knocking, pulling, pushing and jerking on it.

                   I was so scared I nearly fainted at the thought of this total stranger to discover our wonderful hiding place. Just when I thought my days were numbered, we heard Mr. Kleiman’s voice saying, “Open up, it’s me.”

The horror that grasps the conscience of the inhabitants of the Secret Annex were of the chances of their vulnerable discovery, since had they gone into hiding fearing of being captivated by the Nazis and then tormented to death. ‘The young girl’, Anne writes the heart-throbbing incidences in her dairy quoting out the days of her stay at hiding in her dearest ‘Kitty’ dating from June 12, 1942 to August 1, 1944. The dairy, ‘Kitty’ was gifted to Anne on her 13^th birthday by her parents Otto Pim Frank and Edith Frank, and hence is the first entry on 12^th of June. The dairy also glances of the various phases of the emotional, social and physical changes that evolve of a young girl growing into her mature self.

The Holocaust during the Second World War was the dreariest slaughter of humans that would have occurred in this planet. It clearly highlighted the divisions and discriminations that have since time immemorial prevailed in this society of ours. Humans have been termed mundane and damnated by their brother humans with the greatest of agony and wrath, which clearly depicts how inhuman the creature has become.  Anne, cites the plight of the Jews in the following excepts from the entry dated October 9, 1932,

“Today I have nothing but dismal and depressing news to report. Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away in droves. The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they are sending all the Jews....The people get almost nothing to eat, much less to drink, as water is available only one hour a day and there’s only one toilet and sink for several thousand people. Men and women sleep in the same room, and women and children often have their heads shaved....”

Anne reportedly quotes a number of times her altercations with her parents, and wails of her mother unable to understand her growing instinct and feelings of being independent and not be shouted upon rebuking her of being wrong all day. The dairy also reveals of relationship with Peter van Daan, who she would always comprehend of being her companion to curb off her growing need for one whom could she talk to openly. The friendship gradually converts to romanticism and would they spend most of their time upstairs staring at the sky and stars all night.

The emotional being of a girl during her adolescence can clearly be substantiated from the dairy, when on a number of occasions she discloses of her state of despair and pain of being alone and no one able to understand her growing self and the need to be left independent on her opinions and views. She would always discuss of her fragile relationship with her mother and the hatred that she contains for her. Gradually does she matures and understands the difference that prevails between them. Later on, Anne writes of a number of topics that a few of all ages can cite – Gender Inequality and Religion. She dreams of the era when women would be treated the same as men, and not be taken for granted as simply as house-keepers and producers of their children. She also wishes her of becoming a journalist or a writer in future falsifying the human testament of her being the house-keeper like her mother.

The hideout retains for such a long time because of the numerous helpers of theirs – Mr. Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, Ms. Miep Gies and Elisabeth (Bep) Voskuijl whom she thanks in her dairy a  number of occasions.

Anne befits through her writing the ill-fated Jews and their sufferings during the war, the agony of a maturing girl child trapped in a hideout devoid of the worldly pleasures and still rejoices of her dreams of the day, would she be the same she had been and enjoy the nature to the fullest whose importance has she discovered only after going into hiding. She also suffocates of her relationship with the members of the Annex and her longing need for a partner to fill the void that had engulfed all the happiness of her life (which she later finds in Peter). The extrovert finally on 1 August, 1944 talks of the fight between her cheerful, easy-to-go personality and the serious, thoughtful and sensible Anne whom does she wants to win.

The family is finally discovered on August 4, 1942 because of an impetrator informing of their existence to the police and the eight residents are finally sent to different concentration camps of which only Otto Frank survives at the end of the war. Anne is believed to have been killed of typhus that had spread of the epidemic that had struck at Bergen-Belsen, the concentration camp where she and her sister Margot had been brought.

Though did Anne Frank die, but her diary would for long spread the message of the Jewish girl eying for peace and harmony and would forever remind us of the brave girl who fought not only the war, but also her inner self to mature out into the better and self made ‘Anne Mary Frank’.