How many of these questions can you answer?
- Do you know what is a Trunk call?
- Does the name Salma Sultan or Komal G.B. Singh have any resonance??
- Can you sing "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara"?
- In how many languages?
- Does the phrase "Afternoon News for the Hearing Impaired" bring to you an image of a Sunday afternoon, with picture-in-picture newscast with a nice looking lady reading in the inset window, and a fat (ok, chubby) lady talking in sign language?
- Samuha Gaan – ring a bell?? A choir of gents on one side dressed in Khadi kurtas and cotton trousers and ladies on the other side happily singing songs on National Integration..
- Does the phrase "Deepika Ji" immediately bring back memories of "Nirma Super"??
- Do you have ANY idea what I am talking about??
Chances are you are roughly my age and were in India in the late 1980s
This is what my normal Sunday looked like in those days:
08:00 – 08:45: Wake up
08:45 – 09:00: Make sure you have electricity
09:00 – 10:00: Cartoon on TV. (Mickey & Donald show, He-Man, Gayab Aaya, etc.)
10:00 – 11:00: Mahabharata
11:00 – 12:00: Do other stuff like have a bath, breakfast, etc
12:00 – 12:30: Street Hawk, (subsequently replaced by Knight Rider)
12:30 – 16:00: Lunch, afternoon nap, homework if applicable
16:00 – 16:30: World of Sports (optional, but all my friends and I watched it. Showed stuff like Spanish football and the Tour de France)
16:30 – 17:30: Vikram aur Vetaal; Spiderman
17:30 – 19:30: Go out to play with your friends
19:30 – 20:30: Go home, wash up, dinner
20:30 – 21:00: Do something, (anything) while the elders watch Samachar
21:00 – 21:30: Hope there's something nice on TV
21:30 - : Sleep
Ok, the details might be varying a little bit here and there, but I'm sure if you're roughly my age and Indian, you probably find yourself at least nodding at some of the things written above.. There are so many memories, which we have that applies to almost the entire generation..
I know it's tough to say for sure, but you can argue that regardless of whether you were rich or poor, Hindu or Parsi, boy or girl, in India circa 1980s, you had essentially the same choices in front of you. In most cases, the number of choices was more than zero, and less than two.. Everyone had the same weekend, and everyone had the same Monday morning recollections of the weekend.. You could relate to one another, essentially because regardless of who you were, you pretty much had the same stuff going on in your house.. Voices were less shrill, and the need to sell was minimal.. Lalita ji and her son Sanju sold Rin (Thoda sa Rin), and that was that..
Speaking of which, when was the last time you heard the phrase "National Integration"??
A parrot named Annika folds her hands every time we open the fridge in her presence and goes "Thank you God for everything!!!"
I have half a mind to teach her to say "Thank you Manmohan Singh"
3 comments:
Sure can relate to that calendar! Great stuff!
hehehh :) Let us know when you teach Annika to thank Soniaji :))
Calendar differed a little. Afternoon was spent in reading the supplements in the Sunday newspaper.
Hopefully Annika is not singing from atop the dining table.
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