Quite sometime back, i had written this, in which i had tried to fathom the confusion of a generation caught in transit. That genaration is definitely making progress, marching towards the paramaters of the next generation with ever increasing confidence, but in a sense, giving up on things that used to be sacrosanct until a few years back. Nothing wrong with that, to each his own. But there’s one thing that always makes me wonder.
There were things we grew up with – watching potboilers of amitabh in moviehalls with uncomfortable seats and later in VCRs, listening to the nasality of Kumar Sanu on Tseries tapes, enjoying the exploits of Kapil Dev or later Sachin Tendulkar in a crowded room full of cousins, reading Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle and Indrajal, travelling in Ambassador cars and Indian railways, lazing around during summer vacations and so on.
And while they still watch Big B movies in multiplexes, listen to Himesh on Tseries CDs while pretending to say Oh No’s, Tendulkar still rocks despite occasional calls for retirement, ACK and Tinkle will soon be available online, Indian Railways is still cool if we go by Jab We Met, and they find a few hours to laze around during summer vacations despite the karate classes, entrance tutions, salsa classes etc that enable them to survive and win in this oh-so competitive world, I wonder whether they’ll ever get nostalgic about any of the above the way we do.
Or have they found other things that i haven’t heard of that will link them with their childhood and youth, the ones that will give them bittersweet memories which they can jot down like this, the legacy of a way of life they can pass on to the generations that follow. Or will it all be forgotten in the tumble of the life we lead today, in which everyday brings in a faster way of doing things, a quicker way of travelling, a better way to store data, an easier way to communicate and so on… Will it all be lost when things become so transient that the past won’t really matter anymore…
until next time, remember….