GROWING UP IN INDIA

*GROWING UP IN INDIA*

*This is a "must-read" if you grew up in India.
This is about a generation of
kids who eventually grew up tough and learned to make it on their own with
no government subsidies, no unemployment benefits, no medical plans, no job
openings to apply for, even if you had an education, no savings and for
the most part, no inheritance from our parents. Most families lived from
day to day and had no savings.




How true and so well articulated! To Us, the wonderful kids who were born
in India and survived the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's.......... !!*
First, we survived being born to mothers, some whose husbands smoked and/or
drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate whatever food was put
on the table, and didn't get tested for diabetes or any other disease! They
were mothers who did not check their blood pressure every few
minutes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs and bassinets were covered with
bright colored lead-based paints. We were put in prams and sent out with
'Ayahs' to meet other children with their ayahs whilst our parents were
busy.
We had no child proof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when
we rode our bikes we had no helmets, not to mention the risks we took
hitchhiking or going out on our own.
As children, if we would ride in cars there were no seat belts or airbags.
We sat on each others laps for God's sake. Riding in the back of a Station
Wagon on a warm day was always a special treat.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO
ONE actually died from this! We would share a bhuta or dosa; dip a chapatti
into someone else's plate of curry without batting an eyelid.
We ate jam sandwiches or pickle on bread and butter, raw mangoes with
salt and chillies that set our teeth on edge, and drank orange squash with
sugar and water in it.
We ate at roadside stalls, drank water from tender coconuts, ate everything
that was bad for us from bhajias (battered and fried vegetables) and
samosas but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day during the holidays, we
were never ever bored, and we were allowed freedom all day as long as we
were back when the streetlights came on, or when our parents told us to do
so. No one was able to reach us all day by mobile phone or phone......
BUT we were OKAY!
We would spend hours making paper kites, building things out of scraps with
old pram wheels or cycle rims, inventing our own games, having pound
parties, playing traditional games called hide and seek, kick the can,
'gilli danda', 'seven tiles' and rounders, ride old cycles and then ride
down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into
the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
Our parents earned less, never travelled abroad. Religion was never an
issue, everyone trusted and loved each other, and came to each other's aid
when needed.
We never heard of or claimed our inheritance, whilst our parents
were alive. We did not look for inheritance after they died too. They made
sure we were alright. Never heard of pocket money!
We swam with an inflated tube which we got from somebody who was
replacing their car tyres. We ran barefoot without thinking about it, if we
got cut we used iodine on it which made us jump.
Our parents ran after us, to give us castor oil, once a month!!
We did not wash our hands ten times a day. And we were OK. We did not
have Play stations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99
channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile
phones, no personal computers, no I-Pods, no Internet or Internet chat
rooms, no TV,.... full stop! Listening to music was a gather around!
We did not have parents who said things like 'what would you like
for breakfast, lunch or dinner'. We ate what was put in front of us and
best of all, there was never any leftovers. We polished the
lot!!!
WE HAD FRIENDS, great friends, whose parents we called Uncle and Aunty, and
we went outside and found them! They too took care of us, when our parents
were away, and without any charge!
We fell out of trees numerous times, got cut, broke bones and teeth
and there were no compensation claims from these accidents. We never
visited the Dentist! We ate fruit lying on the ground that we shook down
from the tree above. And we never washed the fruit.
We had a bath using a bucket and mug and used Lifebuoy soap. We did
not know what Shampoos & Conditioners meant.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We rode cycles
everywhere and someone sat on the carrier or across the bar to school or
the pictures, not cinema, or you walked to a friend's house and knocked on
the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them, and their
parents, never let us go without a meal or something....
Not everyone made it into the teams we wanted to. Those who didn't had to
learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the law! This generation of ours has produced
some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW
TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
Please pass this on to others who have had the luck and good fortune to
grow up as kids in India, before the lawyers and the government regulated
our lives, ostensibly for our own good, that changed what was good into bad
and what was bad into worse.......
Those were the GOLDEN DAYS my friends of our yester years. !!........
As Lord Byron articulated so well, " The days of our youth were the days of
our glory."
http://youtu.be/3un5f6qLi_k