A 'rite of passage' is a ritual event that marks a person’s transition between childhood and full inclusion into a tribe or social group. The concept of the rite of passage explores and describes various other milestones in an individual’s life when their social status is forever altered. Even in the modern 21st-century world, especially with an Indian societal upbringing, we have been subjected to ritualistic milestones both materially as well as immaterial. Living in a milieu that is obsessed with maintaining the vicious cycle of imparting “values” and “beliefs” from parents to children, and again to the next, the pattern repeats itself creating a loop. The rite of passage is an underlying metaphor here, where the old generation hands over the torch to the newer generations in hopes that it will be carried forward, ritualistically, blindly. Should the cycle be disrupted or not, should the pattern be continued or not, is once again in the hands of those who have the power to decide. To break free and leave the comforts of the familiar takes guts and the problem of the Puer Aeternus becomes the primary neurosis of the modern age. The story travels through a ritual, fulfilling the life mission of a father, the mission of him taking his turn of completing the cycle. The son, following the father irrationally, finally attains the ultimate from where it is he who has to decide whether he would stick on to the familiar or leave the familiar and seek the unknown.
Eternal Child, Generation Gap, Individuation, Rite of Passage, Ritual
