In the Hidden Creases of our Minds…
Sometimes I feel like I'm sitting at a station and trains whiz past me without stopping. I can see the lights in the train windows, but not well enough to see who or what is inside. The next window has already claimed my attention. And then the next!
I have just
updated the OS on my phone and there’s another update already! I overhear a PYT
chatting on the phone, "So I finally cut my hair in the asymmetric fashion
yesterday, and today I saw this swag hairstyle on Miranda Kerr that I wanna
get!" Bathing soaps have gotten better, newly improved and are now endowed
with even better fragrance. No time to blink, the next swanky model of car
is already here. By the time I make up my mind to let my kid watch 'Transformers',
he's already switched allegiance to ‘Arrow’!
The other day I
was watching a TV programme about the 80s. There was a scene where they were
using the chunky telephone; the ones that you had to stick your finger in the
circle and dial. Then you have to wait for it to whirr back to position. It got
me thinking. My generation has buried a multitude of things in the hidden
creases of our minds simply because things got newer and better and then simply
obsolete!
Remember the
weighing machines at railway stations and movie theatres with colourful dials
that spin away when you step on it? It used to be a tradition to check our weight
on those machines every summer holiday. It would even tell your fortune in
addition to your weight that you would meet your life partner or strike it rich
with a lottery soon.
Those days the flapping
pages of calendars would remind us that days were passing by. Rolls of newly waxed
and shiny paper would replace the old ones on that singe nail every January. It
would have birthdays marked in bright colours. Gas cylinder bookings would be
jotted down on the sides. Telephone numbers, milk money, exam schedules and
shopping lists were scribbled on it. Calendars used to be a big part of our
daily lives. Now calendars make the news only when Kingfisher is making them!
Can you
remember the last time you held a fountain pen?! I was reminded
recently when a friend gifted me one and said it’s a collectible not just
because it’s not really used nowadays, but because it was a handmade one.
I love the way a pen allows you the time to think and write. My personal
opinion is that keyboards have a quality of unwarranted urgency to them.
The damn cursor keeps blinking!
Telegrams! Those
little scraps of paper used to scare the wits out of anybody as it was a popular
medium to convey bad news. “Grandfather unwell. Take next train.” But
that's being unfair to the memory of telegrams. They also brought news of job
appointments and exam results. And now they are oh-so-redundant with the onslaught
of emails, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and Snapchat. Today you can post, “Achoo!
My dog sneezed” and get 200 likes and address references of the nearest vet
within a few seconds.
There are many
things I can ramble on about just because I'm in the mood for nostalgia. The
wood framed slate and chalk that was an integral part of our first day at
school. The shiny plastic sticker bindi; not the felt ones; those are
still sticking on! The film negatives; holding them up against the light
and looking at the ghostly reversed images was a favourite past time. Then
there's the growing list of things that will soon become part of our good-ole-days.
Greeting cards, handwritten letters, phonebooks, cameras and books. I
dread the day e-books will pull the plug out on the printed ones! I mourn the missing
footsteps at the post office. I long for that coloured envelope bearing teddy
bear pictures and happiness.
But in the meantime,
I'm still at the station, waiting for the trains to stop or at least slow down;
armed with a mobile phone that has the setting changed to ‘automatic update’!
Have to keep up...iron out the creases!
-Anuradha Venkatnarayan
