Those were the days

Note: This post is dedicated to all those who were born between 1980's and 1990's.

'Alice, who the fuck is Alice?', she shouted. It was Anu, my 8 year old cousin. ' Priya Akka, isn't fuck a bad word? What does it mean anyway?' I saw my Mama, giving me a cold stare. Embarrassed, I immediately snatched the MP3 player from her hand and said, ' Why do you take these things without asking me?'. I tried hard to shift the focus from the F-word to the kid's behaviour, which I did think required some attention.

But wait, what do I tell the kid? Do I tell her Fuck stands for 'Fornication under the Consent of the King', or tell her to Google the meaning or check out the meaning of it in the oxford English dictionary, just like I did when I was in class 7?

Webster’s didn’t have that word in their dictionary back then. Back in class 7, I remember there was this boy, who had watched too much of wrestling and learnt that the f- word had a very bad meaning and showing the middle finger meant the same. It was in class 7 that I learnt to use the dictionary really very well. We searched page by page of the Oxford English Dictionary, for 'Fuck'. Finally I learnt that it meant 'have sexual intercourse with someone.' or used as an abusive word. But what the hell did sexual intercourse mean? I discovered that only in class 9 biology class.

Back then, the movies made me think wildly about the way babies were born. I often thought couples prayed to god for a baby and god made the woman pregnant at his own will. Therefore, one had to be careful and pray to god for the right thing at the right time. My Patti told me,'Kunti Devi in the Mahabharata had a child too early because she prayed for the wrong thing at the wrong time'. Watching more movies expanded my thinking and gave me a bit more clarity on the subject. I learnt that some amount of physical contact was required, and if the couple hugged each other too tightly the woman would eventually become pregnant. It was difficult to think beyond this and I didn't care to think beyond this. This thought was ingrained so deeply that even today it makes me feel uncomfortable to publicly display affection towards my friends who are guys.

I'm no more a teenager and looking back at the way I grew up, I feel not just glad but blessed. I say this because of many reasons. One being I belonged to the generation that saw the rise and fall of a new millennium. Back then in the 1990's, in the newly liberalized India, Internet and mobile communication was nothing but a dream, and Wi-Fi a myth. Owning a cordless phone that time, was a huge deal and was equivalent to having an I-pod 4G today.

It was when I was a kid, that the first mobile phones were introduced in the country. They were in the size of a cordless phone and weighed a Ton. Every call cost 18 Rupees a minute initially and even incoming phone calls were being charged. Pager phones were still in use. It was when I was in class 8 that my parents bought their first mobile phones. I didn’t know to use the T9 dictionary until class 11.

National TV and DD-2 were the only channels that were available until I was 6 years old. Then came the invasion of cable television. We didn't have cable TV connection in our house until my brother completed his class 12. My parents often thought of it as a distraction and a unnecessary luxury. Doordarshan or DD didn’t have many programs, but the few that were being telecast were watched by my family regularly. Malgudi days, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Jai Hanuman, the world this week by Pranoy Roy, the only dose of film songs- Chitrahaar, and Surabhi. The only serial that was famous back then was JUNOON. All that I remember was that the serial was based on an affair between a woman named Mini Kaur, who had left her husband and ran after another man named Keshav Kalsi, the role played by Tom Alter. I remember one of my neighbours complaining to my mom that such serials should be banned as it showcased things that were not in Indian Culture and young girls were getting influenced by what they showed.

I was born in times when there were no multiplexes and we often rented a video tape to watch movies. Whenever the video tapes got stuck, I had fun rolling the tapes back into the plastic case. I still have the video and audio tapes. It was only in class 6 that we bought a VCD player and a few CD's. I remember storing the CD's so carefully and cleaning the Kenwood VCD player every time I used it. The Kenwood VCD player cost Rs. 40,000 back then.

E-mail was considered high technology and Mr.Sabeer Bhatia was the most eligible bachelor at that point. My father had created an E-mail ID and said that one had to be very careful with it. He often boasted about how it enhanced communication with his friends in the US and it must have been an IIT guy who must have invented the concept. These IIT grads .. Phew!! And then arrived chatting. Parents were all the time on the guard, and telling us about dangerous Instant messaging chat stories on the internet, by which many young girls had been fooled.

As a Kid, I belonged to a generation which saw the telephone, change to the cordless phone and Video tapes change to DVD's. I belonged to a generation which saw Social networking change from Picnics to Hi-fi, Orkut and now Facebook. I belonged to a generation where kids were familiar only with two brands, Hot Wheels and Barbie. I belonged to a generation where games meant Ice- spice, Lock and key, or Judo and not Mafia Wars or Mortal Combat. I belonged to a generation that watched Tom and Jerry and Captain Planet and not Animax or Pogo.As a kid, I saw Madras change to Chennai, Bombay to Mumbai, Calcutta to Kolkatta and Bangalore to Bengalooru.

Just the other day, I had left my laptop with my blog page open and had gone out. My parents happened to read my blog on pleasing. As I came back home, there was an unusual lull of the graveyard and I knew something was wrong. After about half an hour my father broke the ice.’ Why do you write things like this?' he said. ‘ Write what pa? What are you talking about?’ I asked . He pointed to the laptop on my table. It had the post open. My mother had a look on her face that I had never seen in many years. She had the same look when we saw a couple at Delhi's Lodhi Park,in a promiscuous pose and I asked her whether they were playing.

'Priya this is blasphemy. We never even knew such things when we were your age. What are you trying to prove by writing such scandalous posts? Become the next Shobha de? This is technology is just ruining these people. Please remove that before anyone else from the family can read it and embarrass us. And this is the last time you are writing such stupid things. I feel so ashamed to talk these things.' my mom added.

Arggghhhh!!! Why do such things keep happening to me. I wish I could bury myself underground. I quietly walked down to laptop and began to delete the recently browsed history. I knew there was absolutely no point in trying to convince my parents about how I had learnt to view things in a different manner, which was the basic ingredient to becoming a writer. They would never get the point. My parents were thinking that I was in the process of writing a new Mills and Boon novel. First thing,I need to search for a pen name, I thought. Just then, I got a pop-up saying Anu has updated her status on Facebook. She was in class 4, yes she was on Facebook. The status read 'Hey guyz please make it to my B'day party at Pizza Corner, Nungambakkam.' I scrolled down and clicked show older posts. I couldn't believe what I saw. It said Anu has joined the group Fornication under the consent of the King. 18 people like this.

My mother began cribbing about my generation only when she was 42. I am just 22 and I've already begun my cribbing about the future kids.