Going down memory lane, have you ever found yourself lost in reverie? The journey from childhood pranks to adulthood and beyond, comes to the mind’s eye in a few fleeting moments, both with pain and pleasure. The memory of lost friends, relatives and birth place is most agonizing. Life in the good old days seems carefree with its own charms. To recall the past is both nostalgic and saddening.
It was a time when there was no hustle-bustle and people were generally more content. Apart from being truthful, they were honest in their dealings and always tried to earn an honest living by the sheer dint of labour. Income from any other source was a taboo. People travelled by train and there was always a certain person in the compartment who never let you get bored during the course of the journey. Travelling to foreign countries was carried out by sea, which took weeks at an end. People mostly shunned air travel for personal reasons.
The pay and pension of the working and retired persons, although scanty, always cheered them up at the beginning of each month, and they thanked God for it. Life in the rural areas was equally peaceful. In the cities, it was a time when people tried to live in a joint-family system. The elders of the family were given due respect and decision-making in important matters was the prerogative of the seniors. The bare necessities of life were plentiful and within easy reach of even the poor. Milk and milk-products were pure and adulteration was akin to sin. People did not use hydrogenated oil and lived longer with good health and without dependency on vitamins and tonics, as necessitated today.
People smoked hooka and cigarettes and cigars were the privilege of a few, rich people. Chewing paan was popular among the upper-class men and women who had nothing better to do with their time than to play cards, chess, etc. Addiction to opium, bhang and ganja was confined only to the low caste. Heroin and marijuana had not been discovered yet, and there were no drug barons. Beverages such as satoo (made from roasted cereals), lassi (from curd), etc, were served as refreshments. Tea and coffee was served to only high brows. Instead of ice-cream, kulfi and falooda were much in demand on sultry days.
At railway stations, piping-hot tea was vended in an earthen cup called kuza, to drive away the sense of early morning chill of the passengers. Roti-kabab was vended by Muslims and aloo-puri by Hindu vendors to be enjoyed by the passengers during their journey. Horse-drawn carriages such as ekka, tonga and rickshaw (drawn by men) were the cheapest mode of transport in cities for short distances.
In the cities, drinking water was supplied from pucca wells dug by a philanthropist. Muslims and non-Muslims lived together in peace and traded in a very friendly atmosphere. Population in the cities used to be thin without the help of population welfare agencies. Women were respected irrespective of their caste or creed. Molestation and honour-killing were rarely heard of, along with a low crime rate. Religious leaders never dabbled in politics and exercised great care in issuing fatwa. Women of all classes preferred to die in their husbands’ houses, instead of being separated or divorced by their husbands for not bringing dowry. There were no movements for women’s emancipation. In a majority of the cases, they lived a happily-married life.
The educational institutions run by the government or by any society aimed at imparting quality education. There used to be competitions between schools or college on how many first-classers they produced. Teachers, irrespective of religious backgrounds, treated all students alike without any discrimination. All the teachers treated their students like their own. Education never cost more than a few hundred rupees or even less. Promising students were given financial help to complete their education, if needed. Schoolchildren did not have to carry a heavy load of books in their schoolbags. Teachers were not obsessed by tuition centres to amass wealth.
Medical science had not made strides like today. Yet, no patient was allowed to die in hospitals due to a doctor’s negligence or the administration of wrong injections. Treatment was much cheaper and a doctor had greater human feelings. Life-saving drugs had not been discovered in the days gone by. One had not heard of maternity homes in small cities, but babies were born safe, thanks to the help of midwives.
Marriages were simple and were mostly arranged by the elders of the family. The rich feted the barati coming from distant places for a day or two. They were entertained with music, dance and puppet shows. Marriage ceremonies were not held in clubs, hotels or wedding halls as today. Bridegrooms rode decorated chargers and the brides were carried away in dolis on the shoulders of kahars in cities. Even the poorest of person did not beg. Females beggars were even harder to come across on the roads, and preferred working as maids.
Terrorist activities, such as killings in broad daylight, were extremely rare. The police, despite certain handicaps, tried to maintain law and order. No one ever heard of police encounters in urban areas. Murderers found guilty were sentenced to death or ended their lives in Kala Pani — two far-flung islands in the Indian Ocean called Indoman and Nicobar. Industrial workers did not stage strikes.
Cities had fewer cinema houses where Charlie Chaplin’s movies and later the ‘talkies’ provided clean entertainment that one could see with the whole family without being embarrassed. Other forms of entertainment of the educated lot included mushairay and musical shows. The rich owned radios and gramophones for their entertainment. Songs sung by singers such as K.L. Saigol, K.C. Dey, Malika Pukhraj, Kajjan Bai, Noor Jehan and others were the rage. Feudals were fond of big-game hunting. The poor were satisfied with kite-flying, pigeon-fancying, wrestling and fishing in a nearby lake or pond. Snake charmers entertained children, who also found pleasure in bears, monkeys, jugglers’ feats, magic and puppet shows. Travelling circus in cities and nautanky in villages were the other forms of entertainment available. Feudals were not fond of bear-baiting, wild boar and dog fights, as cruelty was shunned and not enjoyed as today, in places where the law is slow to reach.
Life today is much faster, shorter, burdened with unending cares, mounting tensions, diseases and various kinds of other phobias. An average human being has now become an ‘automation’ devoid of the real joys in life. One has to fight blood pressure, depression and different manias that never plagued the have-nots. How one wishes that the days gone by could return once again, even if for a short while, to bring one out of reverie in this modern age of technology.
Going down memory lane, have you ever found yourself lost in reverie? The journey from childhood pranks to adulthood and beyond, comes to the mind’s eye in a few fleeting moments, both with pain and pleasure. The memory of lost friends, relatives and birth place is most agonizing. Life in the good old days seems carefree with its own charms. To recall the past is both nostalgic and saddening.
