Have we forgotten basic courtesies?

Have u gone thru this? U go to some body’s house and a single syllable welcome (hmm..hey..hi..welcome..etc) and a brisk turn of head to another direction or a single sentence “hey..see who has come” or “hi..how come this far today???” and a brisk turn of head..and in the rarer cases just no (re)action, almost discounting u without any notice..

Wondering whats the ‘other direction’ offering? Simple folks! TV and mostly a serial running..these days its sacrilegious to visit most folks during the ‘serial times’..
IMHO serials are the single biggest source of negative energy accumulators and pessimism pumpers,..pulling the society’s sanity graph further down in these already bad days..

That’s why I love houses without TVs in the hall or living room (Ra comes to my mind)..and value folks who just don’t switch their TV on when there are guests..even more the people who (till u enter are watching TV) puts them off and jumps in to conversation with u..Those are the rare and pleasing ones..
I went to one such house last Sunday and was pleasantly engaged by all in their family so well that none thought of the TV the few hours that I spent there..my good old friend Pa and his family were the ones who gave this great feeling..Its not just the lack of TV watching that was comforting me, many more..(ok forget the snacks and beverage offered)
I also donot like the other common practise in the ‘visits’ - asking the chottus to sing cinema song and such like..thats a disgusting habit..I think as adults we shud not indulge in such wrong guidance. We shud never be the reason to glorify such crap songs to the kids..hey, ask them to recite some rhymes or some other better things than cinema songs..even worse is asking the kids to dance for songs..i feel ashamed when such things are encouraged esp during my visit to some one’s house..some times u stand a poor embarrassing party to these..

Ok, coming back to the point – at this friend’s house I was saying one kid showed his talent of Drawing the other singing! Man what nice talents to share. The younger one (all of 5-6 years ) draws a replica of any thing u show..a mag cover or his story books or such like..with just one pencil and not withdrawing his hand off, also no eraser used thru the whole drawing..and the elder one sings karnatic songs with such ease of a pro..and he sings a bit (arohana/avarohanam) and looks at me quizzically asking me to cough up the raga name..and is maha pleased at my failure as much as at my ‘pass’;-)
Forget that tastes differ and that one might like to listen to music where as another might want to read and so on..but bringing the TV and movie influence on the chottus is not something we shud do..NO, don’t get me wrong..i listen to movie songs, infact have very strong likes and dislikes, the same on movies too..but when it comes to influencing (esp wrongly) the kids let us take care..
The feeling I had in me long after leaving Pa’s house was mindboggling..