Those were the days!

First, we survived with mothers who had no maids. They cooked /cleaned, they were happy to sew, embroider, crochet or knit, while taking care of us at the same time. Those were days when all the rooms in the house, didn't have air-conditioning and nor did the cars, yet we survived. Rooms had fans, kids played outside in the open, we climbed trees, ran around, played a game of badminton and never once grumbled about it being too hot!

Diabetes, stress, and heart problems were words we didn't grow up with. We didn't have friends whose parents suffered from any of these. Today kids are stressed out on account of the curriculum or exams! Today Diabetes and heart problems are attacking the 30 year olds.

When we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, and we are alive today! Maybe traffic was less and probably more disciplined. As children, we would ride with our parents on bicycles/ motorcycles for 2 or 3. The rich ones, rode in cars with no seat belts. Riding in the back of a taxi was a special treat. A car was a car and no one cared about the make or price! Most families had one car they could park in the garage. Unlike the 3 cars per family parked on footpaths, sidewalks and roads today.

We drank water from the tap and not mineral water from a bottle. We would spend hours on the terrace under bright sunlight flying our kites, without worrying about the UV rays, which never seem to affect us. We hadn't even heard of sun-block!

We took the time to write "real" letters that you walked down to a post office to post. We developed handwriting skills and literary expression, without even realizing! We booked trunk calls and hollered across to distant relatives. There was no e-mail, no one had heard of cell phones We would leave home in the afternoon ( in Delhi winters) and play all evening, till the streetlights came on. There were no cell phones and no one could reach us all day. And we were okay.

We wandered through forests to catch spiders and butterflies, spy on rare birds and never worried about mosquitoes that spread dengue or chikengunya. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually worried about the hygiene hazards.
We ate salty, very sweet & oily food, chocolates, bread and real butter, ate cakes and cookies without a worry, and drank very sweet coffee/ tea / milkshakes, but we weren't overweight because...... we were always outside, playing!

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, multiple channels on cable TV, DVD movies, no surround sound, no personal computers, no Internet. And we were never "bored"! We had friends and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cuts, broke bones and teeth and we still continued the stunts. Birthday parties were simple, full of balloons, cake, goodies and party games. They weren't held in five star hotels those days. And no body cared.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and just yelled for them! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! Yet this generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, leaders, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 40years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learnt how to deal with it all! If you are one of them, who belong to this generation, Congratulations!

We were lucky to have grown up as real kids ( not overgrown ones) before the government regulated our lives for our own good, and technology invaded our privacy or stunted our communication skills. We need to tell our kids about all this, for them to know how brave their parents were!

We were lucky to have grown up as "real" kids, weren't we?

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