"We grew up in India when __" by Pallavi

We grew up in India when..

when we used to dash home from school, throw our bags and run down to play...pakda pakdi, chhupa chupi, chor police, dog n the bone....

When the Deol brothers, suniel shetty, Jackie Shroff etc were still delivering hits... ;-)

When we listened to Kumar Sanu and appreciated his voice! And people actually knew who Baba Sehgal was.

When Pizza Huts and Mac D's and KFCs were quite unheard of and Aam Pachak and chatar Patar and churan was relished :-)

When we religiously watched Captain Vyom, Chandrakanta, Mahabharat, Mowgli, Alice in Wonderland, Sea Hawks, I dream of Jeannie, Dennis the menace :-)

When DD had the balls to air the first english television serial..A Mouthful of Sky..(and Milind Soman was young and oh-so-handsome)

When most of the mothers weren't busy climbing the corporate ladder..and had always time for us :-)

Suno ji or aji sunte ho was how most moms addressed most dads....not by their names! :-)

When we never..NEVER EVER had to bother about money (which we rarely had in our pockets), rat races, recessions, economic downturns, inflation, rising gold prices, IT jobs, broken relationships..

The biggest and commonest time-pass amongst adolescent school going kids was to write FLAMES on a bit of paper and find out who was a "Friend",who "Loves" u etc etc

When every house had a land line phone that rang with its same old ring tone and mobiles ringing with filmy tunes were unheard of

When people bought smart little Phone/Address diaries and meticulously copied their contacts from old diaries to new ones..and only true friends survived the transition between old phone diary to new phone diary :-)

When telephones were meant for talking, letters were meant for messaging and cameras were meant for clicking photographs...a single rectangular device, doing all this...was unique and rare

When our relatives staying abroad visited us once a year or once in two years and the "foreign gifts" they brought were highly cherished and shown off....unlike today when all foreign products available on shelves in air conditioned departmental stores or available online on e-bay...

We weren't very connected to people...hardly any caller ID phones in the middle class Indian home..no internet...and even if there was internet then certainly no webcam...no mobile cameras, no 3G....so we looked forward with anticipation everytime the phone rang, or everytime the doorbell rang or the postman delivered a letter....we couldn't Block contacts/friends (like we do on chat lists today)..if we didn't like them..every call had to be received, every knock on the door answered and every letter read.

We addressed people as Bhaiya, didi, Uncle, aunty, Bhai saab, Behan ji, sir, madam or if not anything then with a beautiful "ji" at the end of their names...we weren't on first name terms with everyone and had a relation for every stranger too.

My wasn't spelled "mah", You wasn't "ya", The was never "da", Cool wasn't "kewl", Goodnight, Sweetdreams was not "GN SD" and neither was Take care "TC"...and Love wasn't "luv" and Life wasn't "lyf"....in the 90s!!

WE GREW UP IN THE MAGICAL 90's