Kya Zamaana Aa Gaya!

There are times and there are times…we are currently passing through perhaps the most rapidly changing epoch in history. What was relevant ten years ago is not even under consideration now. The days of hand-written letters, delicacies like baalushahis and imartis, fruit like shehtoot and ber, as also courtesies like calling-on family friends are all but passé. People have adopted new lifestyles, newer mores and still newer thought processes. These are the days of online-networking, Blackberries, I Pods, X Boxes, Play Stations, size-zero, vegans and reverse-sweeps!

When our kids talk of something “old” like an “old song” or an “old movie” what they
refer to is something which came in just 5 years ago, whereas we parents wouldn’t even like to think of “Sholay” as old! These days I have to check myself a lot when I am about to tick the children off for something new-fangled. They watch stuff on TV which we would still not be able to bear, at least not without looking sideways. They watch films which are certified as UA but which would have been declared XXX in our times! What was utterly unacceptable to society some decades ago is no longer taboo today. Some very positive developments have taken place too. The caste system seems to have gone into the history books (especially in urban India), and inter-caste marriages are the norm today. Of late, in fact, nobody even asks whether the bride and groom are entering into a “love” marriage or an “arranged” one. The only question worth posing these days is whether the girl is older or the boy!

Middle aged people spend hours at the parlour and also evidently quite a hefty percentage of their salaries. Indeed the average Indian on the street has succeeded in looking much better than his or her ancestors ever did. There is not much difference between the attire of the pretty not-so-young-things who frequent malls or restaurants today and that of the hottest heroines in Bollywood.

Experience tells us that there has always been a difference of opinion between the young and the not-so-young, but one must spare a thought for the senior citizens of today. Many of them have seen times changing from the days of Meena Kumari to those of Rekha, then to those of Madhuri Dixit and now its over to Kareena Kapoor! What must they think of the latest fads like living-in and gay movies? They probably wince many a time and then realize that this is just not their era.

They must surely feel that the world seems to be in a tizzy nowadays and no one really appears to be “solid” or “well-grounded”. On occasion I have noticed many a senior citizen seated on a park bench, eyes shut and humming a K.L. Saigal favourite while obviously thinking “Kya zamaana aa gaya!” At such times they must wonder whether the good old days would ever return. But then, they never do.