Live Positive Way - Memories

Live Positive Way - Memories

I am remembering those days, when I used to tell my mom, “come on Amma, your days’ songs are so boring. How come you keep hearing them so many times? 

Huh! That’s ‘too mean’ right? I feel bad now, while thinking how rude I should have sounded then.

Now, at this ‘middle age’, I understand, what it should have meant to her then, when I keep hearing to Illayaraja’s songs now—which has become a food for my soul. 

We, who took birth in 70s & 80s can understand and get a nostalgic feel reading this post, for sure. Em just remembering those days…our school days…our bicycle rides, friends and our favourite phrase “vividh bhaarathiyin varthaga oliparappu –naeyar viruppam”….‘our own’ radio station-which had a monopoly in the broadcasting space those days. There were neither ‘malls’ nor ‘big super-shops’…we had only small shops lined up in the streets.  Chennai, being an active city—used to see every shop open early in the morning—those days without any other option—for everyone, for every morning—listening to vividh bharathi’s telecast  was an important ritual like listening to subrabadham.  All houses and the shops, be it a ‘tea-kadai’, be it a ‘thunik-kadai’, be it a ‘maligai kadai’, everywhere its same music, same song…  

I get decked up in my uniform and will be waiting for my friend Bhavani to reach my house around 9.15 am everyday so that we can go together to school.  That used to be the time we get to hear some latest songs in that radio channel which will last for 30 minutes without any break.  We normally commence our journey at the start of the first song, we keep pedaling as slow as we can to listen to those songs fully.  We continue listening to them together all the way, Thank God! we didn’t  have headphones to isolate us from the rest of the world.  The best part is we keep chatting while riding.  The songs used to do the job meant for the background music and worked as a Catalyst in building a long lasting emotional connect.  It is rightly said that music is the solace for soul(s).  We used to hear our Thalaivar Rajnikant’s and Kamalhasan’s songs back-to-back, since they were competing with each other those days releasing movies throughout the year and ensuring us to listen to their songs without any break in the whole year.  We used to listen to those songs in that 30 minute morning slot, mostly.  

Hope my contemporaries remember those tiny 25 paisa ‘pudu paatu’ booklets. I used to collect them and keep for every new Tamil movie release. The way we by-hearted them and these radio channels helping us to keep them in our memory files are mind-blowing… Being a singer I still can sing all those songs without the lyrics in hand since it helped us in developing our rote memory skills. Now we have all latest Smart Apps like Smule, Starmaker to sing, and there is no need to memorise lyrics since we can check the lyrics while singing live, but I find none of the new song lyrics I can remember after a few days.

Those days’ life was very simple, sober, yet fulfilling.  We were more connected with our loved ones which the latest app like ‘WhatsApp’, ‘FaceTime’, ‘Google Duo’ all fail to help us achieve that. 

We used to buy “cone ice-cream” near our school gate and our parents neither restricted us nor we fell sick due to that.  We used to ‘know’ all our peeps staying near our house and get to see all our neighbours gathering at temple for special occasions or at ‘ration shop’ to buy ‘kerosene’ (while writing this, the ‘kerosene smell’ still lingers in my mind).  The news of availability of kerosene in the ration shop used to create happiness on the faces of everyone which can be equated to the availability of new currency notes after demonetisation. Now, the building society in which I am staying for the past 6 months I got a chance to interact only with one of my neighbours (btw, a special note here “I am an extrovert”).

Those days I don’t remember anyone complaining or making a big fuss about any lack of facilities at school or at home.  We were trained to ‘adapt’ and ‘accept’ what is given happily. If we get dresses as gift from some relatives on some festival or marriages, we used to keep it safe for our upcoming birthday or some festival. We were taught and had a habit of appreciating the good intention of the giver and it personally helped me to cultivate patience, restrain from buying a new stuff when I already have one.  Now-a-days we have more dresses than the wardrobe storage and we hardly gift or receive dresses from relatives.

There used to be no back-up for power supply in our era and once there is no electricity supply we immediately start playing ‘anthakshari’ (music game).  Does this new generation even know what is anthakshari or the strategies we used, to make the game interesting? The game will last for hours together. 

We can safely claim that we were closer to the nature those days. Without any big apartment buildings, we had only two option, either to choose play under the hot sun or sit at home and we often opted for the first option to play out.  The houses with ‘WELL’ (ground water source) surrounded by trees, flowers, butterflies…filled with love, passion, care…. I guess now-a-days kids neither go out to play nor they are as attached to the nature or people as we were in our childhood days.

We belong to that generation, whose life-style was simple and is introduced to all new things, beginning from Television to today’s latest technology IOT (Internet of Things) or VR (Virtual Reality).  We were that ‘lab rat’ for all testing purposes. I remember the way I got surprised (shocked?!) the first time I saw computers.  Being a young aspirant that time the pressure of learning how to handle that box was a real challenging situation. I wonder if those old computers are still there and kept in some museum since computers have gone through a massive transformation. Oh yes, I am right now typing this using my new slim laptop and probably I post this in my blog page using my smart phone… Hah! what a change in life…isn’t it?!

I have quoted many a times in my Facebook page or shared with my friends that, “Two man-made things which amaze me and really fascinates me are, one, the Aeroplane - which can take us around the world and two, the Internet - which brings the world to us! But, when I remember my childhood days, I fall into a Catch 22 scenario about ‘internet’ being a blessing or a curse.  Does internet really help us to stay happy the way we were in our childhood days? A big ‘NO’ for sure. It is far easier to send a WhatsApp message to my close school buddy but it can never give that happiness of those time where I used to take my bicycle, ride 2 km to reach her place, see her in person and talk to her. 

I used to get comments from few of my young friends, ‘Suganthi you are updated with all new technologies but you are two generations behind’.  Yes, I agree to their view with a smile. They don’t even know what it was to be in 70s and 80s.  We are the ones who are rooted deep in that simplicity yet coping with the latest ever-changing life skills.  A few recent movies and the discussions that we had in our School friends WhatsApp group made me post this blog post.

Hope the ones who belong to my age group are now in a trance filled with old memories and the new ones with whom we have a generation gap is wondering, 'what she is writing'?  And I am heading back to use my latest iPod to listen to my own favourite ‘Ragadevan’ Illayaraja’s song since I am feeling so nostalgic and wish to travel back in time to my childhood days, yes of course, VIRTUALLY!

Stay happy, stay positive!

- Suganthi Sankaran