Travelling through memory lanes
I HAVE written about the generation gap, cultural transformation, millennium generations X, Y and Z, alpha generation and the upcoming beta generation in 2025.
I recently asked my classmates in school and college during the 1960s to go back in memories and come to the current situation and express their thoughts. Only two responded and one was a YouTube post by Shivan Mittal with a picture showing 1980 where the whole family is praying before dinner, and in 2024 instead of praying they are all on cell phone texting.
Those of us who were children in the 1960s are grandparents or above 75 years old now. One of the things we can do in old age or any age is to travel through memory lanes. This is a very good exercise for anybody to do and understand or analyse the human life and development and changes happening to the world, the people, the culture, lifestyles and the changes in each generation.
Those of us who are above 70 years old, who were born and spent our childhood till college or till age 20 or above, could easily make that early through memory lane and see the changes I am talking about. When India became independent, it was a poor primitive country with few people studying in school, many fewer completed high school and very few people completed college degrees.
Kerala and big cities like Chennai, Bombay, Calcutta, and Delhi, etc. are exceptions. Kerala was a poor state. Poverty in India was above 50 percent, in some states was even 75 percent and poverty in those states is still 25 percent or above.
Kerala’s poverty has come down to 10 percent and literacy is above 80 percent. Kottayam District is named where literacy is 100 percent and poverty is 0 percent.
What has happened to Kerala since 1950? People were getting used to the Democratic system of government after being under Kings’ rule for many generations, and for our parents and grandparents, it was a great experience and changed lifestyles.
In 1956 the State of Travancore-Kochi became Kerala, adding Malabar to the North and removing Kanyakumari district to the State of Tamil Nadu. It was done as part of then and the first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s plan to create each State based on what language each State’s people speak.
Kerala was for Malayalam speaking, Tamil Nadu for Tamil speaking, Karnataka for Kannada speaking and Andhra Pradesh for Telugu speaking like that. In 1957 the first-ever democratic elected communist government in the world came to power in Kerala. The land reform bill passed by the communist State government made revolutionary changes to the State.
Those of us who have been visiting Kerala every two or three years since the early seventies from the countries where we migrated till now have been seeing and experiencing the changes that have been happening in Kerala, India and the world.
When we look back through our memories, we see a lot of unbelievable things - starting from TV, fax, pagers, dial tone phones, touch tone phones, booking and waiting for overseas calls, cell phones, direct dialing all over the world, computer, Internet, email, laptop, I-pad, YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp.
In technology, from coal-powered to diesel-powered to electric-powered trains, gasoline-powered to hybrid to electric cars, turbo engine to jet engine to faster airplanes, single lane roads to double lanes to multiple lanes nonstop highways, and regular deep hole toilets to modern flush toilets
There are major changes in the way women dress, from mundu, chatta or blouse to sari to salvar to today’s skirt and top; men's mundu is popular locally, and pants and shorts have become more common. Then there is the way of life, as people become richer, it changes, above all the changes in generation.
When we were in school, there were discussions about the generation gap, now there is no more gap, it is the generation divide. My generation even after we moved to the USA, my children’s generation and grandchildren’s generation have a great divide, mainly because of technological, educational and economic advancements.
Going back to our discussion on traveling through memory lane, we see that there are many lanes we can travel from the past to the present. We can travel through our personal life, professional life, immediate family life, extended family life, community life, religious life, friendship life and it goes on.
One or twice a week, if you can travel through one of these lanes, it will help you analyze what is life, what is the meaning of life or what is the purpose of life. It will help you expand your thoughts, impressions and outlooks.
