The Modern Art of Miming

One of the most primary stories for kids is “The Cap Seller and Monkeys”. From that moment, every kid knows that imitation is meant for monkeys. Still, kids do not bother. We are all descendants of monkeys. That’s why kids love to mime. Kids imitate their parents. The slang of the father, the sari draping style of the mother, the revising pattern of the teacher and the vegetable chopping of the grandmother etc. There is beauty in that mime.

However, as the man grows up, he gets educated. Education is for a man to come out of the brutish skin to be a man and to stand on his own pair of legs. Imitation is not very wrong. Imitation is graceful at some points.

The system of having role models is a way to inspire people. Amar Chitra Kata is the pioneer in presenting to children, the lives of great people. The books include Maharana Pratap, Harichandra, Kannagi, Buddha, Jamshedji Tata, Akbar, Birbal and so on. All these people must stand in the minds of children and foster them with the nourishing stuff of their lives. If not completely, following partially the footprints of these legends help children reach heights.

Another imitation of today’s society is very rubbish. One can hardly tolerate this imitation- the dark art of imitating a silly or a serialized habit. Gandhiji puts this in his precise capsule term, “Following the beaten track”. Gandhiji says that one has to break the fetters of the habitual deeds and take a detour to the new ways. The new ways here are not taking the shortcuts to reach heights but the roads that are not laid completely to reach heights.

There are some rumours in the air that students who go for professional courses can only survive. Some people hilariously claim that engineering graduates can only become bridegrooms. All these rumours and their spinners always stay as laughing stocks among the well-educated scholars of the twentieth-century during their walking hours. If it is a semi-literates point of view, it is unfair to thrust that among the innocent illiterates who are in a high dream of getting their kids settled in their lives.

To quote an incident in my locality, a mother wanted her son to pursue medicine. In this sentence, everyone may appreciate the mother for her generous nature to serve the people. I may give you a shocking statement of hers. She wanted her son to become a doctor because her sister-in-law’s daughter is doing her dental under-graduation. She even shows her filthiness by telling her husband to hold fat money or leave the property at stake to take a medical seat for her son.

Some people have the habit of sending their kids to places out of their hometowns because the only cliché utterance they give is ‘exposure’. Exposure could be gotten even from our houses and internet. Going to hostels foster boldness, amicability, enjoyment and interdependency but not the word ‘exposure’ only. Even classes like dance class, drawing classes are populated with kids of a particular colony or a particular kith and kin.

All these characters do not just stop with themselves but dump this into the ears of other people. These ‘other’ people pester their children to do what their so-called mentors tell them. Many people take bad role models are end up in misery. Every student knows what is academically right for him/her. There is no need for guidance from anyone around. To avoid this imitation, the only solution is to use the ‘sixth sense’, God has given or to borrow it from the washing machine.

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– Sivashruthy Namachivayam

Content Writer @ Legal Bites