‘Back-In My-Day’ Rants: The ‘Pot and Sex’ of Every Generation

My future descendants, here’s what it was like “back in my day’’...

My grey-haired musings did not need years, just Twitter. 

(Photo: The Quint) 

Back in my day, I was archaic enough to dream of starting my sentences with "Back in my day". Turns out, my grey-haired musings did not need years, just Twitter. (I mean, it is easier to opine and rattle off delightful punchlines there than in person, right?)

(PS: Twitter’s also proved quite conducive to my tiresome itch for make-believe Elizabethan adages like, ‘’Youth is like a lavish meal...it is always better in hindsight’’.)

A tiresome itch for grey-haired musings. 

Anyway, truth be told, a back-in-my-day argument is akin to the ‘pot and sex’ of every generation. It just keeps coming back!

They keep coming back!

My father speaks of street lamps he’d rested his nether end on while ruffling through endless pages of textbooks. Sometimes, he forgets the details and replaces himself with my grandfather in the same threadbare narrative. I tried calling his bluff once, but was immediately distracted with a noisy smartphone.

Mi padre and mi great-padre are thus the Great Masters who poked the bear, whose theatrical legacy I shall carry forward.

My kids and grand kids, new to an India that shall finally (and hopefully) be exorcised of the 90s and its hangover, shall be Skyped (or Facetimed, depending on the economy) back-in-my-day arguments by me, while they train cyborgs to do neat stuff for them.

The cyborgs you guys will rub shoulders with very soon. 

So, my future descendants, who, I hope join the ranks of the Tom Hiddlestons, Barack Obamas and Roger Federers, and make the most of my wonky, yet pleasant gene pool, here’s what it was like “back in my day”, given YOUR times prove my imagination right!

Of Cracked Spines And Dog-Eared Pages

Well, well...

Humaare zamaane mein, books weren’t relics. And attention spans were salvageable. Books weren’t auctioned for hefty loads of Bitcoins. They used to lie around the house, modest and friendly, without pulling an ostentatious face at the highest bidder. Believe it or not, I have touched and smelt many a book myself!

‘’Whatevs’ And Its Kin

Back in my day, TV sets were fast disappearing, but, after an unofficial consensus, it was agreed upon that they were definitely better than emotions, in their ability to keep families glued together. What, pray tell thee, will keep you guys together, other than a common apathy that has already started manifesting itself in shoulder-shrugging ‘’whatevs’’ and monosyllabic Whatsapp texts?

At least they kept families together. 

Caller IDs, Tinder And More

Humaare zamaane mein, we’d braved a world without caller IDs. When the phone rang, you picked it up, weathered the storm of uncertainty. And mostly you picked the receiver up, because you never knew how urgent the call was till you took it. Later, with Caller IDs and all things fancy, we figured out how to perfect the socially-acceptable, socially-awkward ninja.

Fact-checking was anchored between Google searches and hard-bound books and Facebook was a one-man army among its rivals.

We were sandwiched between the old and the new, but happy that we got to choose either, neither or both.

Blue Ticks were still a novelty and as solicited a form of validation as Tinder.

Speaking of Tinder and Facebook, Bharat Matrimony was on tenterhooks, counting its last few years.

Will Tinder emerge as the new Bharat Matrimony? 

Beware...

I can go on and on. A lot will have changed for you guys, for better or for worse, but that’s okay.

You’ll acclimatise.

As long as Black Mirror is still a show and employers do not ask for your Uber ratings at interviews.