Maybe its age creeping up on me as I move on to the wrong side of the 20s (Thanks Neeti!) but there are things from my childhood that I used to take for granted and/ or ignore that I see less and less of nowadays. What were permament fixtures in the landscape of the India of the late 80s and early to mid 90s seem to have finally entered the final leg of their existence – at least in urban India.
Permanent Fixture: Something or someone who has been a part of a situation/ surrounding for so long that we presume them to be always there. Ex: “Everytime I arrived in the village, I would see the old man sitting under the banyan tree greeting everyone who would come and go. He was a permanent fixture in the village scene. The village greeter …”
Most of my memories of urban to semi-urban India growing up are around some people/ things that were an integral part of every town in India …
- One of the many fading memories of the India of old.
My first memories of the news stand are at railway stations (a place that still have a lot of magazine carts around). I would always want to buy the latest Sportstar or comic for the journey to come so that I could pretend to read while I looked at the photographs in the magazines. The other real memory are of dad sending me out with Rs. 10 in my hand to buy the latest India Today or Life! magazine from the corner news stand.
Now a fading relic in today’s digital age, the only two news stands that I can think of in modern Hyderabad are the one next to Paradise circle (which used to have 5 vendors at one time) and one on the busy streets of Abids.
Thankfully, everytime I go to my village in Kerala, I get to see this comforting sight again 
Whenever you think of ice-cream vendors in India nowadays, you think of this:
But the image that remains in my mind is that of the good old Kulfi waala. The man who would come up to every building in the neighbourhood in his bajaj chetak and shout “kulfeeeee” – the call to which every young brain in every household would simultaneously flip a switch and ask their mothers for the Rs. 3 needed to buy this precious commodity that will bring eternal peace to our souls. I guess what I miss the most is the personal experience of the Kulfi and the saint who would give us the kulfi and refresh us with his smile even before the kulfi was had … Good times, good times
Culture and comics for the young Indian.
Every Indian child’s first exposure to comics and culture used to be the Amar Chitra Katha series of culture ridden comics. A perennial favourite, the stories brought us stories that only a grandmother could have otherwise told. Stories of kings and jesters, ghosts and kingdoms, of Punyakoti – the honest cow that went back to the lion as promised after saying goodbye to its children, of Chanakya the one man who shaped the thinking of kings and so many more.
One good thing is that I know that these are still being published, although I don’t know how they are doing as a business …
- Kapil Dev lifting the world cup
Enough Said!
There are so many things that come to mind when I think about it but I can write only for so long. If there is anything that comes to your mind, add on
I leave you with the quintessential Indian video: the national integration video that we used to see every day on Doordarshan:
