Jaane Kaha Gaye Woh Din??????????

THOSE GOLDEN DAYS…………….

I am 32 years old now.  Today; July 23, 2004, I have become fat, a little bald, and old.  I recollect my childhood as a sit alone on my desk with a computer in front of me and think, “Where have those golden days gone?”

I used to stay in Secunderabad, the rich brother of Hyderabad.  My home was very close to Clock Tower, which I correlated to the Big Ben whenever I saw it.  Most of the time, it never showed us the correct time, but there were some times when we had some delegates coming over and suddenly the local “Big Ben” used to start working.

My home was a part of a building which housed four families, the Taliaths, Nairs, Singhs, and us; the Malurs.  The outhouse of the building lodged a family of five, the Raos.  The building had a huge gate in which was the old 1966 Fiat parked; it belonged to George Taliath, a man who was relaxing most of the time.  As a child, I always used to think why this man never went to office like Appa; least did I know that he did not have the necessity to work as he had a huge rubber plantation in Kerala.  The Taliaths were four in number; Mr. Taliath, Mrs. Taliath, and their two daughters, the always gentle and docile Priya and the naughty and tomboy of the building Preetha.  The ground floor of the complex housed the Taliaths and the Singhs.  The Singhs were a weird lot.  There was no woman in the household.  Mr. Purshottam Singh’s wife was no more and he had five children, Vasu, Prakash, Kishore, Ramesh, and Shyam.  Exactly above the Singhs was the Nair family, a conservative Keralite family consisting of Mr. Nair, Mrs. Nair and their two children, Baby aunty (as we used to call her) and Unni, the son.  Facing their house was our house, Appa, Amma, Ravi, and I.  The fifth house was not attached to the main complex, but was more of an outhouse.  The Raos consisted of five individuals; Mr. Sudhakar Rao, Dr. Ratnaveni, and their three children, Prasanna, Suresh, and Sunitha (all of them extraordinarily brilliant); these were the ones I envied.

Those were school days and we were at our peak in terms of energy.  Hyderabad was a very ancient city with more than 400 years of history behind it.  History being one of my favorite subjects, I always used to look at old buildings.  The area of Marredpally housed many English buildings and constructions, belonging mostly to Anglo-Indians.  I used to wonder to myself, “These buildings must have seen the coming of the British, their superior powers, their atrocities towards the native Indians, etc.”  All sorts of ideas popped my mind those days, a curious child I was.  School was about 15 – 20 kms away from my home, at Jubilee Hills.  It took us a good 45 minutes to get back home.  As soon as we were back from school, we used to throw away our bags, change into something more comfortable, and run out to play.  My house was a lane with about 7 buildings.  Right opposite my house was a huge space with small houses in the interior, a scooter mechanic garage in the front, a dhobi and a car graveyard.  Next to that was Mr. Appa Rao’s house.  Following that were two huge protestant churches.  On the opposite side; i.e. the row where my building was located, starting from the “Big Ben” end, was Mr. Ravi Khanna’s house (the owner of Basera – now a 3-star hotel in Secunderabad).  Next to that was Arvind Nursing Home, which lodged the Sharmas; Dr. Sharma, his wife and his three kids, Anand, Arvind, and Archana.  Adjoining the Nursing Home compound was the Zandu Pharmaceuticals Warehouse, which also held the family of Parekhs.  They were four in number, Ms. and Mr. Parekh and their two children, Jyothi and Ashish.  We were their immediate neighbors.

Anand, Arvind, Ashish, Ravi and me were the kids in that lane and the kings of our lane.  We used to get together to play cricket at the Zandu Pharmaceuticals warehouse, which had a huge front yard.  Come from school, play cricket until my mom used to call us back and then get back, finish your homework before Appa was back home and be ready for the 9 o’ clock show on television, which was the only interesting thing we used to watch.  The 9 o’ clock shows, as far as I remember were the following:
Monday:  Nukkad – a Hindi comedy serial.
Tuesday:  Hum Log / Buniyad – the first two soap shows of DD (DoorDarshan).
Wednesday:  I love Lucy.
Thursday:  Ados Pados – A comedy by Sai Paranjape.
Friday:  Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi – Another comedy starring Shafi Inamdar, Swaroop Sampath, and Rakesh Bedi.
Saturday:  Buniyad again.
Sunday:  This was at morning 9 o’ clock; Star Trek.

We as children of those days used to end our days in the above manner.  Movies were an integral part of the families those days.  We used to go out for movies, eat outside periodically, go to art exhibitions, consumer exhibitions, etc.  This is something, which I don’t see very often lately.  Movies we used to enjoy were more simple and local Hindi movies.  Hyderabad is one of those Indian cities which was not very westernized and we were some of the privileged ones, who were able to watch those good movies of the late 70s and 80s like Golmaal, Chitchor, Choti Si Baath, Bataon Bataon Mein, Katha, etc.

The small happiness from eating mangoes, flying kites, hanging out in Irani cafes, watching cricket matches standing outside the barbed wired Gymkhana Ground.  Seeing “Star Trek” and using two empty matchboxes, make a telephone like the one they use in the show.  These were small things we found our happiness in. 

In contrast to that, we always see kids today using cell phones, stuck to television, CDs, DVDs, and a huge amount of technocrap.  If you ask a kid today about nature, he might be able to give you a good answer (using computers and television programs), but ask him about how to climb a tree, he would not know.

Are we driving our kids and the coming generation to a life of complete techno-dependency?  Ask yourself this question and if you do find an answer, please let me know.

JAANE KAHA GAYE WOH DIN????????????????????????????