On a lazy, warm weekend when billionaire industrialist Anand G. Mahindra happened to tweet a short family video, plus his comments, he may never have anticipated the kind of response it triggered.
The heart-warming clip pertains to an east Asian clan with five healthy, living generations captured at what appears to be a family gathering.
It starts with a small boy, maybe aged less than 10 years, calling out to his father, who in turn calls out to his Grandpa, who summons his Great Grandpa, and the entire family hails the Great Great Grandpa, obviously nearing his centenary.
The clip shows the five generations standing in a single row, cheered lustily by their families, and captured for posterity by the video-camera.
Quite awed, the Mahindra Group Chairman gushed: “What a blessing, 5 generations together. I wonder how many families around the world have this rare privilege of 5 generations — mothers or fathers together.”
Mahindra, 66, threw the ‘age bucket challenge’ for Indians — “Would be great to see a similar video from India.”
As the post went crazily viral, generating more than 5,15,000 views in barely 48 hours, the great Mahindra didn’t know he had it coming!
Accepting the gauntlet, one Sudesh S. replied — with photographic evidence of five generations thriving in his family — an infant girl with her parents, grandparents, great grandparents and great great grandparents, and how the local media had taken note of the clan’s penta-generational feat.
One Sandeep Mall from Faridabad also confirmed five generations living under one roof and even extended an invite to Mahindra to sup with them all — albeit, in return for a modest gift of Rs 1.60 million SUV Mahindra Thar!
Would be interesting to know whether the Mumbai-based industrialist would grab this ‘no-lunch-is-free’ offer.
Kumar Anandaraman shared five-tiered family pictures with himself, daughter, grand-daughter and his mother and grandmother.
Another gentleman replied that he had a treasure of five generations in his family and listed his son, himself, his mother, maternal grandfather and maternal grandmother!
Then came a spate of four generation families — one girl aged 18, her dad 47, grandfather 72 and great grandfather 99, one Sadanand Sonker also had the same claim to fame.
One Atul Agrawal of Mumbai posted an all-women picture spanning four-generations — a minor daughter, her mother, grandmother and great grandmother, and a lawyer M.K. Gawhade shares his four generations, all-male.
The innocuous tweet also sparked a debate with some who had no such illustrious string of relations ruing how fortunate many others were with generations there to bless the next one.
One gentleman commented that in India this was a very common phenomenon, and continues in the small towns and villages.
However, in cities the trend has gone quite extinct with rapid industrialisation, and has been replaced by ‘nuclear families’ which are gaining in popularity.
All in all, Mahindra’s tweet succeeded in drawing attention to the ages-old charm of the joint family traditions in India, with generations living, enjoying and thriving under a single roof.