It takes a village to raise a child. Not just because extra hands can relieve some burden off parents’ shoulders, but because social engagement has a significant influence in the making of an adult. Urban children more specifically have limited avenues for interaction, often confining themselves to school, tuition and organized curricular activities. Peer interaction is commendable, but the world doesn’t revolve around peers. The real world has people of different ages, different economic and social backgrounds, different beliefs, and different lifestyles. The wider social participation is crucial in my view, to building a nation of people who are better able to manage their families and their lives.

While this is easier said than done, I see today that people are becoming more interested to engage with each other under one cause or another. Just this morning, hundreds of people got together in Kota Kemuning (my neighbourhood) for the National Geography Earth Day Marathon – young and old, from all walks of life. Likewise, yesterday, we had the Telugu Association of Malaysia(TAM)'s Ugadhi Fest 2019, to celebrate the Telugu new year. It is an annual event, and for the first time, was held at TAM’s new academy in Rawang. Again, so many people from all stations in life came together to celebrate culture and tradition – some came in charted buses, some on trains and some drove all the way from Kedah and Johor.

The question people often pose when it comes to gatherings like this is – what’s in it for us? Honestly speaking, whether it’s the participants of the one day marathon or attendees of a cultural celebration like this, although on the outset it all seems to revolve heavily around the apparent cause, in reality, it’s really about raising our younger generation and helping them find their niche in this world. That niche can be the tradition and beliefs they will hold on throughout their lives, the families they will associate with when they grow up, the aspirations they should be working towards as they step into the real world etc.

For mothers like me and I believe for a lot of family men and women, these are the avenues that allow us to be a parent and part of the society at the same time, without having to sacrifice one for the other. More importantly, it allows us to shape the society that our young will be living in because by participating in a cause and supporting it, we are influencing the world they will be striving in in years to come.

And of course, for the older generation, I see that there is so much happiness to venture out, to rub shoulders with their past and catch glimpses of the future. And for us, there’s nothing like getting a good perspective on life from 60 and 70 year olds.

In that sense, those organizing such events deserve the highest commendation. For the Ugadhi Fest, it took a huge team of volunteers who woke up as early as 4 (or didn’t sleep at all) to get everything set up – the ground works, the stage, the performances, the home cooked delicacies and hundreds of other stuff. TAM has never failed to deliver on its promise of a great time, and it was the same this time and I really hope this continues for many years to come.