Hamare Zamane Mein: Reminiscing The Era Of Cassettes And Chhupan-Chhupai

An era of innocence was when every afternoon she merrily slides out onto a lush lawn and she doesn’t feel the slightest bit insane in going to every flower and singing.  Peeping her head towards every flower and sharing musical notes. The primary class teacher shared the secret of plant life and the little girl got to know that plants are not inanimate. The impressionable mind would take the teacher’s word so seriously that plants from hereon would be regaled by a singing session every single day.

An era of innocence was also when mom floated the poori in the iron wok and started flickering oil over the top of it, a thought bubbling in her mind. She had started to believe that everything in the universe is zoetic and the poor poori is been subjugated to float in steaming hot oil. “You sure? it would not feel hot” she looked at her quizzically. Mom did not realise that the impressionable mind would actually zoom the tip of her finger in the cauldron to put an outlier alert to mom’s blatant lie.

If there is anything as pretty as Childhood? Childhood memories have such splendid charm. The sounds we heard, the smells we breathed and the sights we captured. Certain things come and go with childhood. The incandescence caused by the expression, “Hamare zamane mein” made me pen down a few heartfelt childhood memories.

Reminiscing Olden Days

Hamare zamane mein;    

• The essence of childhood lay in the games that we played and the fights we fought. We played Chhupan-Chhupai, pitthoo, aais- paais (many years later I learned it was ‘I-spy’) plot four, ludo, carom, ghar ghar, teacher-teacher, akad bakad bambe bo and something like 'tipi-tipi top, which colour you want?'

• Cable TV and multiplexes were faraway discoveries and hiring movie cassettes and playing them on the VCR was a thing to chill. Groggy eyed we would watch one movie after another, it was a movie marathon as the VCR/ cassette which was hired will be taken back in the morning.

• Every household had a single television, which was placed in the drawing room with a TV cover on it and an air conditioner was a luxury which not many could afford. Duties were allotted to fill up the air coolers and water bottles to be kept in the refrigerator.

• Watching Mahabharat and Ramayan was a family thing. TV those days meant Chitrahaar, Vikram-Baitaal, Dada Daadi ki kahaniyaan, Ek Do Teen Char, Krishi Darshan (hardly got any attention). Doordarshan Samachar was reserved for the elders in the house. Hum log and Buniyaad were the granddads of Indian television and New year meant watching New Year’s Eve programs on television with the family.

• Nostalgia overdose is bundled up in Chacha Chaudhary, Pinky, Tin Tin, Billoo, Tinkle, Richie Rich and all other adventure and laughter-filled comics we grew up reading. The stamps we collected and the scrapbooks we made.

• English songs sat on a different pedestal. People who knew the lyrics were considered genuinely cool. We grew up in an era where we used to get our favourite songs recorded on a cassette and there were Dhinchak cars that played music really loud.

• We grew up in a time when there was platonic ecstasy in writing and receiving handwritten letters and notes. Landline corded phone with a round dial was one such mode of communication which was used by the entire family. Those were the days of knowing phone numbers by heart.

• When 50 paise meant at least 10 orange toffees and we splurged on coffee bites, éclairs, kiss me, and milky bar. The campa cola and vanilla combination was called black beauty.

• When summer holidays meant Nani Ka Ghar. Nani ka Ghar was a synonym for a lazy morning, scrumptious home-cooked food, and evening ice cream kind of outing in the nearby market area.

• When birthday parties were always meant to be at home and mummy made pakoras, chole bhature and desi style chowmein. The younger/ elder sibling will stick the balloons and buntings on the walls.

• When bhoot wali stories and calling spirits send a chill of horror in our spines. Haathi chitti, Santa Banta jokes tickled the funny bone and made us seismic with laughter.

• When we were starry-eyed or bushy-tailed about the foreign land and bragged about NRI relatives and the gifts they sent. “Yeh America se aaya hai” was respected among peers.
• When train journeys meant aloo ki sabzi with poori and siblings fighting over the window seat, or the upper boogie in a train.

It is incredible the way life re-morphed itself. We grew up in simpler times far away from technology. We didn’t have a lot of toys to play with, and our resources were limited but our hearts were content. Growing up in the 80s and 90s was like standing at the threshold of modernization. Singing to the flowers was just as fine as caring for the pooris in the wok until we stepped into the 21^st century of logic and reasoning. Aajkal ke bachche would surely have a thing to take forward from their childhood to adulthood where they probably discuss gadgets but they are certainly devoid of the joy that came from the era of innocence.

Suggested reading: Why Parenting Teenagers Is No Different Than Raising Toddlers