Starry notions on the way

Trying to get back to the routine after a longish spell immersed in -- well, the not-so-routine ...

It was a nice song, if treacly, and for some reason I cannot explain is always associated in my mind with the film Le Mans -- but other than that, I never have had much use for nostalgic sighs of the "those were the days" variety. That caveat said, this nostalgic sigh made its way across my e-desk a few days ago:

THE 50'S ....."WE HAD IT SOOOO GOOD"!
We ate jam sandwiches or pickle on bread and butter, raw mangoes with salt that set our teeth on the edge and drank orange squash with sugar and water in it. We ate at roadside stalls, drank water from tender coconuts, ate everything that was bad for us from puchkas to bhelpuri to bhajias and samosas, but we weren't overweight because we were ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

There was never a child, not a single child who was OBESE! We would leave home in the morning and play all day during the holidays, we were never ever bored, and we were allowed freedom all day long as we were back when the street lights came on, or when our parents told us to do so. No one was able to reach us by mobile phone or telephone. And we were OKAY. We would spend hours making paper kites, building things out of scrap, inventing our own games, playing games like hide and seek, kicking the can and rounders, ride old cycles and then ride down the hill only to find that the brakes are not working! We swam with an inflated tube, which we got from somebody who was replacing their car tyres.

We ran barefoot without thinking about it. If we got a cut we used iodine on it, which made us jump! We did not have Play stations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no ninety nine channels on cable, no CDs or video taped movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no I-Pods, no internet or chat rooms, no television, FULL STOP!

This generation of ours has produced some of the best risk takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! Life was so innocent!

PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO OTHERS WHO HAVE HAD THE LUCK AND GOOD FORTUNE TO GROW UP AS KIDS IN INDIA, BEFORE THE LAWYERS AND THE GOVERNMENT REGULATED OUR LIVES OSTENSIBLY FOR OUR OWN GOOD THAT CHANGED WHAT WAS GOOD INTO BAD AND WHAT WAS BAD INTO WORSE. THOSE WERE THE DAYS MY FRIEND!

I would like to add: I also ate Tibbs Frankie. Still do.