Back To The Future

Another month, another year..... ushered in with the customary brilliance and cheer, that perennially marks the arrival of every new year! And looking back over the past coupla decades, weighing them against the current state of the world, with a lot of nostalgia (the typical drooling over the good-ol'days kinds) and a tinge of narcissism, I think we're the survivors.

First we survived being born to moms, who had never been prescribed a supplementary intake of vitamins and calcium in the form of tablets to be swallowed every morning after breakfast. Neither did they undergo any amniocentesis test, to determine if we were going to be genetically deformed at birth - And well, we arrived, all bouncy and healthy and ready to take on the world if you may please.

After overcoming this primary hurdle in our infancy, we precariously travelled on scooters on our mommy's laps, while daddy expertly manoeuvred through the not-so-dense traffic. We sat in cars that didn't have seat-belts and never felt the need for one. We played in mud and probably consumed some of it too, but no worms grew inside our tummy. We toyed around with plastic bottles and covers that had absolutely no warnings about suffocation on them... and nobody suffocated.

We fell off trees, bikes and walls - and were definitely not rushed to the hospital for a shot of tetanus at every instance. We ate pani-puri and bhel-puri from any roadside stall within our radius. We drank water from taps, water coolers in the vicinity, or shared from anybody's bottle when playing - not just sealed bottled purified mineral water- and mind you nobody died! We played hide-and-seek, cricket, hop-scotch under the hot sun, and created our own exciting adventurous games when things got mundane - and nobody had a stroke. We hadn't even heard of Age of Empires, Counter Strike and Quake. We probably created those during our adventures :) There was only a single channel on TV, and if there was nothing interesting going on (as was usually the case) we simply switched it off, and went out to play.

When we wanted to talk to friends, we went and talked to them. We played, fought, and shared stuff - all the while, having them around us in our proximity. None of us knew what "online" meant and we probably wouldn't have been very impressed either, if anyone had had the foresight to come over and explain it too ! Holidays meant, we were out playing all day, and would show up at home only when the hunger pangs struck - and no-one so much as batted an eyelid to the fact, that they were not able to reach us all day. And we were ok.. believe me, we did just fine.

We never had to memorize a list of 10 digit cell numbers (also written in our diaries stored in our school bags), indicating whom to be contacted in case of an emergency. And we never seemed to have any such emergencies that could not be dealt with, without dialing a 10 digit number.

We ate chocolates, candy and toffees all day long, and nobody gave a damn about blood sugar and diabetes. However when our consumption went a little overboard, the biggest caveat that we ever received was usually to do with cavities !! Yeah.. we survived ! Pizzas never arrived at home upon dialing a number, and we never went out and had a 'make-your-own-salad'. Our mom's made the salads at home.... we merely turned up our noses at the veggies and then just had them! However, when we did eat out, we made sure we ate all kinds of cheesy, oily and spicy stuff - and mind you, we were never over-weight because of it!

Yep, in some sense we're the survivors. We've indeed come a long way. To have been exposed to such peril and undergone such trauma at such a young age, and to have survived. Imagine......... Our grandmothers didnt even know how to google !!!!!

~Tweety