India is shining.

My son in his younger days asked me ,innocently whether we had lights in our childhood days when I sighed at my lack of computer knowledge.This question sent me into peals of laughter .To him then, I was a' oldie' whom he conjured up to be a primitive cave dweller in my youth.

Our generation was backward in comparison to the current one but not that backward.Electric bulb was in vogue even 80 years back at the time of my fathers youth, though lightening a single room .
Yes there is a tremendous change and difference in the living conditions of the present generation when compared to mine.

The present youth takes a mobile phone for granted. Even the lowly rag picker has one and I remember that in my youth my friends flocked to my house requesting to speak to their relatives over the phone which we were lucky to have only because the government provided my father for working for them.I often had to carry messages coming over the phone to my friends and neighbours.And on getting married we had to wait for 10 long years to get the much coveted BSNL land line [the only connection available]after registration.Now the connection to a mobile phone is provided' hey presto' in a matter of few seconds!

The roads that are clogged with motor bikes is amazing to my eye's that has seen only a few Vespa's and Lambretta's strutting proudly on the streets as a well deserved trophy after years of waiting in a long queue of applicants and ultimately succeeding in acquiring them much to the chagrin of those who didn't.

The only soaps known to us were Lifebuoy and Hamam.Clinic and gleam were the only brands of shampoo available which was a luxury to the middle class as it came in huge quantities[minimum 1 litre] and was highly priced .Now there is an array of soaps that are cheap and good and shampoo sachets of Re1 hang in glittering rows upon rows in every and any petty shop dotting the cities as well as villages.The age old shikai has been given a silent burial .

If a relative returned from U.S or paid us a visit they were sure to be mobbed by a bunch of relatives clamouring their share of nylex sarees ,perfumes and electronic devices which was then flaunted in social circles proudly as 'phoren' goods.Now every street corner has shops burgeoning with polyester sarees , ready made clothes [the once indespinsible tailor has now shifted to garment factories],cosmetics and innumerable gadgets.

Barring a minuscule upper class , the entire population of India wore much washed and frayed cotton clothes and the poor looked like beggars.Now I see a reversal of sorts .The entry of polyester has in one wave of the wand has clothed the poor,low and middle class with durable,decent and easily affordable clothes and with plenty of detergents available they are clean.Now a days cotton has become a luxury to be patrinized only by middle class who have started flaunting the crisp cottons in their social circles !

In our times the dhobhi rendered a invaluable service in washing dirty clothes .Now thanks to the entry of washing machines in droves, house wives have become dhobhis and the dhobhi side lined to merely ironing clothes .

In our younger days the only channel on t.v . was Doordarshan and only programme worth seeing was Chitrahar.Of course even in our circles only a few could afford to buy a t.v and those who couldn't posses one were allowed to see the popular programe Chitrahar.Every friday the drawing rooms then resembled mini cinema halls.We were wonder struck to hear about the multitude of channels in Western countries beaming films etc 24 hours aday whilst our T.V could barely manage 4 hours of transmission.

Now every household a tv has become a permanent fixture .A house or hut in a village may not have toilet facilities and have only mud flooring but a TV will be reclining on a stool majestically in a prominent place.There are so many channels 24 hours a day at the press of the button in the remote that all this choice is so confusing that I long for my good old Doordarshan days.

to be contd..............