Indian families are known the world over for caring and sharing and bonding.  For bringing together happiness and proving to the world that money is not everything in life.  For maintaining a decorum in even the worst of times, and taking it on themselves the huge responsibility of instilling some values in not only their families, but  in the entire society itself, through discipline of a good kind.

Yet, the cracks have already started appearing in the Indian families.  It is extremely worrying to find a great deal of tension in Indian families. The father and mother are either too busy to spend any time at home, and the children are too busy either with their home work, or if they are constantly under the care of their grandparents or servant maids, with Facebook and twitter and whatsapp and everything else that they perceive as high tech.  The grandparents are helpless and cannot control their grand children at all.  If they try to intervene with their suggestions or advise, they are simply shouted down with a rather curt comment, "you are simply outdated".

Even the parents of the child join in chiding them and, the grandparents then shrink into a world of their own, or seek refuge of some old age home or the other.

A very disturbing trend is noticed in some families where the husbands and wives are professionals, and have absolutely no time for their children.  They think that they can easily get over their guilt by just pampering their children with the costliest of gifts.

The children like the gifts, but only for a while, till they start realizing that the sense of touch, of recognition, of kinds words and so on -- every single point is missing, and they simply stare at some at a world of emptiness.  Of feeling totally down and out.  It is only then that they go apart, fall into bad company.  It is for no empty reason that we constantly find that the worst of children affected by the drug menace, are mostly very rich children.  The poor children and those who have no discipline anyway in their homes, get to see drugs sold in illegal ways through informal channels, and then find regular buyers in the rich children.  There is big money involved, and along with drugs comes alcoholism, premarital sex and so on.  

As far as the teenagers are concerned. there is a big war out there.  Atrocious films and the horrible television serials, often bring home the worst of messages and the 'how" of falling in love, in defying parents, of eloping with their so called lovers who are just classmates, and minors too.

And the consumerism and the conspicuous consumption that is eating away most of the disposable income of the middle class, is now becoming a bigger threat to the worst of ideas that germinate in every young person's mind.  Every young person wants a thirty thousand rupees salary, and this includes engineers from the worst of engineering colleges, that are just not worth even the letter pads they get printed on to be known to the outside world. 

Even if jobs are available in different locations and even outside the native States, the engineers do not want to join.  Every single fellow, wants to join only the IT industry, for all its glamour and its glitz.  Even the teachers in many engineering colleges constantly feed the message that the IT industry is the best.  No wonder, the manufacturing industries are now finding it very difficult to recruit the cream, that either goes abroad for higher studies, or is just tailor made only for the IT industry.

Where do we go from here?  The indiscipline, the highly disturbing  trend of children tending to go the wrong way, based on a whole lot of environmental influences, can be brought back to some discipline, if, and only if, the children are nurtured the right way, before the age of five, and then constantly taught the basic discipline.  They will get to stand out, only based on inputs received from the family.

Even if the environmental pressures pull them in the opposite direction, it is very likely that the children will never go astray and will stay within the boundaries of normal civilized behavior. 

If the child has a taste for music, particularly Hindustani or Carnatic music, it is wise to nurture such a talent even before the age of five.  Music of this kind can really bring about dramatic transformation, and even when the child does not show great inclination for music, initiating the child to all the religious practices before the age of  five, will go a long way in bringing out the best in them, in a very organized manner.

I have known children of such families who clean toilets, clean up the entire homes, take care of the personal belongings of the father and keep his bags neatly packed for the official tour and so on, at the age of just eight or nine.  The bonding is perfect, and the transparency that goes with such bonding has to be seen to be believed.  The parents constantly teach the boys on the need to respect girl children, and they are allowed to have mature relationships, but within limits.  The families often go out to shop together or on picnics or excursions. 

One can easily imagine what will happen to the children.  They constantly top the class and enter the world-famous Indian Institutes of Technology, or the best of engineering colleges.  Even the National law colleges are dominated by children from families where the basic discipline is very much intact.  

The next logical step is to top or do so well in the GRE or the GMAT examinations, for higher education in that mecca of the best of careers in the world, with world-class research facilities -- the USA.  Money is never a problem, as the best of careers fetch the children tons of money.  As a matter of choice, the parents like to live in the best of old age homes, that have all the trappings of the best of life, like jogging tracks, doctor on call, and so on.  Off and on, the parents do visit the children settled abroad.

Too good to be true?  Just research the constant and serious inculcation of discipline, as a way of life, in the top two per cent of academic performers.  The familiar stories are repeated over and over again ---- howsoever busy the families are, the parents are, the basic discipline comes right before the child is just five years old, and continues throughout life.  

This is exactly what I mean by discipline at home.  If such families can do it, why can't others?  Want to believe that this discipline is only for children of rich families?

Research again.  Children from postman's families, children from families of watchmen,  children from the most ordinary families where the mother even sells food stuff on the road to educate the children, are all too common in India.  But far beyond such sacrifice, and hard work, is the determination, to see that the children grow up through hard work, study so well, and are good role models for others.

Such families can teach many lessons to the entire society.  It is up to us to learn so much from them.