Received this via email I am not sure who the author is.. it may not even have originated from an Indian but yet I am sure most of us can relate to it.. so with due respect to the creator and with additions of my own in italics…To all the wonderful kids who were born in India , grew up in the 60's,70's and 80's and survived :
First, we survived being born to mothers, some, whose husbands smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate whatever food was put on the table, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
They were mothers who did not check their blood pressure every few minutes.
(mine didn’t)We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking or going out on our own.
(nd all those longs walks up the mountains and along the streams with none to guide but just the dogs)As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags.
[Our car would have been the most rickety since it had to go through the terrible tea estate roads. Needless to mention that only an Ambassador was built for it. Thinking about it now, I still cannot believe that my Father, instead of repairing the door which would not close [the mechanics had already closed shops after our late night movie] asked me to faithfully hold onto it while driving up a 20 km long treacherous mountainous road (Mundakayam to Kuttikanam)… I dont remember my Father looking back even once to see if I was still there! And recently when I mentioned this to him he feigned ignorance:) ]
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
(ahh the water was the purest!)We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
(dint we all? and most still do…)We would share a dosa, dip a chapatti into someone else's plate of curry without batting an eyelid. (
I hope the current generation still enjoys this)We ate jam sandwiches or pickle on bread and butter, raw mangoes with salt (&
chilly powder) and drank orange squash with sugar and water in it.
We ate at roadside stalls, drank water from tender coconuts, ate everything - Bhel Puri to bhajias and samosas, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
(there was no dearth of games.. we made games out of nothing…but now the kids can have all the PS$.. and still be bored)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 as long as we were back when the streetlights came on, or when our parents told us to do so. No one was able to reach us all day by mobile phone or phone.
(those were the days!)And we were O.K.
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 cut we used iodine on it which made us jump. We did not wash our hands ten times a day.
(Wash hands?)And we were OK.
We did not have parents who said things like "what would you like for breakfast, lunch or dinner".
We ate what was put in front of us and best of all, there was never any leftovers.
(but now we have to push and prod them to eat..)We fell out of trees numerous times, got cut, broke bones and teeth.
(We jumped from one tree to another and my younger sister was the leader!)We ate fruit lying on the ground that we shook down from the tree above.
(and how tasty those were!)And we never washed the fruit.
We had a bath using a bucket and mug. We did not know what shampoo and conditioners meant.
Yet 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!
Please pass this on to others who have had the luck and good fortune to grow up as kids in India in the 60's 70's and 80's.
