As we grow older, we have more years behind us to study the way things were and they always seem better than now. By all the changes we create a space to reflect on the way things were for us when the days were sweeter. But it must be noted that there is nothing new between the way people love and hate, or do not love or hate.
Our lives build slowly developing upon the past. As we take stock by looking back, we remember the days as better, simpler & less confusing than now. We all will be missing them as it were, the way life was back then. One could long to return to the days of youth which rest, “Back in the good old days.”
As time passes, we might wish to revisit the years as a way of holding on to life. “Back in the good old days…we did things as such as; people no longer do the same as we once did.” As the time passes, people claim the right to be justified in saying things were better before than now.
Let me state few things as to how the things were 50 years ago:
- If there is a hole in the chappal (slippers), we would get it repaired. Similarly, a torn dress would be stitched and worn.
- For the children, their school uniform would be their Diwali new dress. Eating home cooked food and burning crackers along with others during Diwali gave happiness. Children were innocent. Walking to school even in hot summer seemed comfortable.
- Previous day’s curd rice with pickle was the staple nutritious breakfast.
- A week before the marriage all the relations would assemble. For every small occasion, all relatives would gather. The guests were treated as God.
- Rajesh Khanna and Dev Anand were heroes.
- Rains would never fail and all the crops were cultivated without fertilizers
- Used to write letters for the dear ones. Love and eloping were unknown. For catching a thief, the entire locality would run behind the thief. Less police stations and less criminals
- For killing a snake that entered the house, neighbours and friends would come to help.
- The early morning was a sight to see and sunset was a feast to the eyes. Train journeys were the happiest.
- Rich people had radios. Govt collected taxes for using radios, paid at the post office.
- The newspaper was published in black and white. Front-page full-sized advertisements in the newspapers were unknown. Examination results were published in newspapers!
- Bollywood music used to be released on gramophone records.
- Fixed line phones were a status symbol. Messages were sent by the telegram. Usually, the telegrams carried bad news and hence, people were scared of telegrams.
- No LPG cylinders. Food was cooked food using firewood. No pressure cookers and other house hold gadgets like grinders & washing machines etc.
- During summers, water was stored in earthen pots. People slept in courtyards at night.
- Children played outdoors. No pressure on children to study. Father was the master of the house and he had the final say.
Above all, there was humanity everywhere. In the name of development, we lost it all. Whatever be the technological advances, these memories can never be returned. Hence, goodbye 2024!
Assuming that the time machine exists, which can transport me to future or past by 50 or 100 years, and I had to choose between one, I have to consider choosing between slight possibility of self-destruction or heavy possibility of destruction of at least our species.
Consider that I choose to go 100 years back in past. Now along with me I will be taking various bacteria, viruses against which although my body has developed immunity, but population of past has not developed that immunity. Even if the bacteria are as simple as a mild fever causing one, it can have a drastic effect on the population, even extinction because this is a battle between bacteria evolved for 100 years against a species where modern medical science has just begun.
Now if I choose to go to the future, I will be at threat by the evolved bacteria and virus against which my defence mechanism is not at par. But since the human civilization would have developed its medical science exponentially, they could find some medicine that could strengthen my defence against diseases. So, my existence in future poses no harm to anyone.
Hence, I welcome the future and 2025. Wish you a Happy New Year 2025!
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional. What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
