Once upon a time, it was all very different!
Life was simple…children actually enjoyed ‘childhood’ in its truest form…choices were uncomplicated…..
I look back with misty eyes at a way of life that no longer exists. Modern living has successfully banished those simple pleasures that those from my generation and the ones before were fortunate enough to have enjoyed.
Walking down memory lane, what do i remember?
I remember…..
That breakfast used to not be so full of dilemmas and debates as it is today….the choice of a hundred different cereal brands has taken the joy out of breakfast time. If one wants Weetbix, the other wants Cheerios. Gone are the days when we sat down at the table and ate in silence and without fuss the poha or upma or sometimes just plain toast with butter that was put before us. I do not recall me or my siblings having a heated discussion about what we ‘liked’ for breakfast.
That watching a Hindi movie meant waiting patiently for Sunday to roll around. There would an excited scramble around the house as 6pm approached. All the family would be gearing up for this one great source of entertainment which we had been looking forward to for the entire week. Unlike today, when children pull out the DVD of their choice from shelves that are bulging under the weight of a stack of movies any time they are ‘bored’.
That ‘boredom’ was not the fashion statement it is today. We did not know this concept existed. We went about our days, playing, reading, arguing….Can our parents honestly remember us mooning around the house saying ” But…I’m bored!”???
That childhood meant going downstairs in the evening and playing cricket/hopscotch/hide’n seek with the neighbourhood kids. What about catching-cook? That wonderful game has been the delight of many a childhood evening. Would the kids of today drag themselves away from Wii or Playstations to play something as simple yet truly liberating as ‘catching-cook’?
That getting dressed to go out used to never be such a ‘finger-on-chin’ exercise in pondering and wondering. I remember having 2 party dresses and i would alternate these when we had to go out for an ‘occasion’. I cannot remember being troubled by whether i should wear the yellow dress with the tweety bird on it or the ‘dora the explorer’ two-piece outfit or perhaps the jeans with the embroidery on the back coupled with the striped singlet top with the knot at the front….In my day, it used to be either this or that, black or white…rarely so many different shade of grey.
Although i often urge my children to resort to these simple pleasures that i enjoyed as a child, it is just not the same.
Those were golden days indeed!!!
Do you remember anything that marks the difference between your childhood and that of today’s kids? I would love to hear what you have to say 🙂