In the article published in GK on 7th August, titled “Absurdly Wasteful”, the writer portrayed the picture of what our social gatherings have turned into. The author has put it well, and more than that given a perspective.
Now I wanted to elaborate and present another perspective of what meaningful social gatherings can bring to our society. In the recent times of Covid we all realised the importance of socialising.
By socialising I am referring to face to face conversations and gatherings and not the digital conversations. The pain was not being sick, but not being able to meet one another.
Healing becomes easy when you are with your own. Its natural and psychological phenomena that a human is born to socialise and talk to one another and share joy and sorrow.
Now what I actually want to underline is what we as individuals can do to make these social gatherings meaningful and goal oriented rather than mere timepass, a vague formality, and actually a presentation of social evils. It is such an opportunity lost that we do not realise. It can be a great source of relaxation from all the stress in our lives.
As a society we need to think about welfare of one another. The main social gatherings we have in Kashmir are at marriage functions and let’s talk about that.
Today everyone wants to showoff by performing extravagant weddings so that they become the talk of town. Marriages should be less about things and more about whole hearted joy and happiness.
These gatherings should induce values like empathy, sympathy for one another. It should be a medium to address social evils in the society. It should bring us closer to one another and create an atmosphere for exchange of ideas, knowledge.
It should enable us to serve the society by providing help and support. It should be based on idea of promoting simplicity and austerity among people.
Now the buck stops on us. We need to start somewhere to make this happen. We all can disapprove things that go against the idea of society, talk to one another without being judgmental and work towards establishing a healthy society.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.