Talkin' 'bout My Generation

                                             

                        

                                                            Black & White TV

A generation is all the people in a group or country who are of a similar age, especially when they are considered as having the same experiences or attitudes. Any analysis of generation relies on generalities that can’t possibly describe every person or situation. There is no doubt that the gaps between the generations have widened dramatically.

I believe that the changes ‘my generation’ has seen in our lives, none of the future generations is going to see, or most precisely it may not be possible for any generation to see.

Think about what life was like when we were 16. The clothes we wore, the places we shopped, how we passed time, and the things we did would look absurd to the Millennials.

Let me take the people of my generation down the memory lane. Listing below a few of the highlights of ‘my generation’ :

1.    We are of the generation which has seen supersonic jets as well as bullock carts and also have travelled in bullock carts and horse carts as well.

2.    We have seen the old bulb change into a tube light and then into LED lights.   

 

           

3.    We have seen the big black switches on the switchboard, which are now an antique item.       

4.    We have heard bedtime stories of kings & princes/princesses from our grandmothers and would not go to sleep unless we heard one such story.

5.    We had our food sitting on the floor, drank tea in a saucer with jaggery instead of sugar.

     

6.    We are the people of last generation who have done our school homework in the light of moon, lantern, or a lamp, yellow light of a bulb and have read novels or storybooks inside the sheet in broad daylight.

7.    We have exchanged our feelings in form of letters and have waited for a reply of our feelings for months together.

8.    Letters delivered by postmen to live chatting and seen ‘virtual meetings’ happen which were impossible once.

                               

9.    We are a generation who have spent our childhood without coolers, air conditioners and sometimes even without electricity.

10.   We are the people who have gone to school and marriage parties putting mustard oil in our hair, which sometimes dripped up to our faces.

11.   We have spoilt our hands and clothes with the ink from our pens. We have washed our wooden slates and written on them with the help of a wooden pen.   

                                

         Wooden Slate with a wooden pen

12.   We are the last generation people who used to run home on seeing an aged relative as we used to respect elders to the stage of fear.

13.   For a long time we used black or red ‘dant manjan’ or even white tooth powder and sometimes even cleaned our teeth with salt.   

                                 

14.   We are certainly the people who have listened to BBC News, All India Radio ( Vividh Bharti), Binaca Geet Mala relayed from radio Ceylon and Hawa Mahal over a big radio, with due attention. We waited for these programs anxiously and eagerly.

                                

15.   We are the people who had only one TV channel ie. Doordarshan  

            and had weekly programs like ‘Chitrahaar’ and a movie in two installments i.e. half on                        Saturday and the another half on Sunday.

16.   We are the last people who used to sprinkle the roof with water in the evening and spread white sheets for sleep at night. One pedestal fan was enough for the entire family. We used to sleep late in the morning even when the sun was over our heads.

Alas that period is gone now; sheets are not spread, coolers and air conditioners are installed in box-like rooms where days and nights are spent.

17.   We have polished our canvass shoes with the help of a whitener and even with a white chalk.

                          

18.   We have seen beautiful relations and their sweetness spreading to people who have become extinct. All the cousins used to get together in grandparents’ homes on vacations, even for months together, and shared love and had fun. Those lovely relations are still continuing though we don’t find much time to be together but memories and relations of childhood are still there.

The more we are being educated, the more we are becoming self-centered and selfish, uncertain, unstable, lonely, and lack confidence.

            

19.   We have felt the sweetness of relationships and we are the last people who have been witness to a period that seems unbelievable now.

20.   We were more gentle with our parents, but now we have to be gentle with our children.

21.   We got to know mostly all our neighbours, but now we all are strangers to each other.

22.   We used to love eating a lot, even fatty foods, because we needed the energy to work ( manual too), but now people eat a balanced diet for the fear of cholesterol and putting on weight, as now manual work is very less.

23.   We are the people where one person worked to support the entire family, there were some unwritten rules of middle class which had to be religiously followed by one and all. But now all have to work to support one child.

24.   Our parents loved to read books and study, but now the parents love to update their status on Facebook, Instagram and read their Whatsapp messages.

                        

25.   We never thought that one day there would be a phone which one would be able to carry along while talking as even landlines phones were considered a luxury.

26.  We were taught about our dharma in schools.

I know today’s generation will find it very amusing, absurd and unbelievable as nowadays all things are on their fingertips and more than 1000 TV channels and a number of other ways and means for entertainment. But I think many of us have experienced all this.

Whatever it is despite all the facilities of the modern world, those days were very good and enjoyable. People enjoyed carefree lives had a lot of time at their disposal and took life easy, not like today’s hustle and bustle, when everybody seems to be on the run.

I would request my generation friends that in case I may have missed anything that they have experienced in their younger days, please send your comments in the comments section of my blog.

In the end, I would like to tell the young generation that “We are not Senior Citizens but we are recycled teenagers”.  

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