THOSE DAYS

'THOSE DAYS'

The world has changed. It was an altogether different world in those days!!

There was a time when you sent an ordinary telegram home from another city after a journey : "ARRIVED SAFELY". This would be delivered some twelve hours or even later at the cost of the then ONE rupee (over 100 rupees in today's value).

A long distance telephone call was called TRUNK CALL and had to be booked through the telephone exchange. These calls were very expensive, got connected after a long wait and there was so much noise over the telephone line that half the time was lost in high-pitched shouts of HELLO HELLO, CAN YOU HEAR ME!

Affluent people, then, kept huge radio sets prominently in their drawing rooms. The news at night was usually read by Melvill de Mello in his baritone voice after the time-beeps of nine O'clock. And there was that man with a golden voice, Ameen Sayani, who had just introduced the BINACA GEET MALA (the hit parade) in radio - at 8 pm every wednesday. People gathered round huge radio sets at 8 pm sharp and roads were deserted.

Radio, then, connected you to live cricket too as there was no TV. And Vizzi, the usual commentator, was more interested in his own stories and less in the ongoing match so after hearing loud background uproar when he indulged in his story-telling, you did not know what had happened out there on the cricket ground!

There were no inter-connected train compartments then. Each compartment was separate and there were four classes for a railway journey. The big First class coach had two cosy, wide, well cushioned lower berths and one upper. Other classes were Second, Inter and third classes. The third class was aweful and had not improved from what Mahatma Gandhi had found, much earlier. He had this to say:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24461/24461-h/24461-h.htm

Only the rich had cars and there were no scooters except in the film ROMAN HOLIDAY. Middle class people went about the town in a comfotable horse-drawn  TANGA and the poor in a bone-shaker EKKA. Kids always sat in the front side of the tanga as it was safe there but had to brave the horse's unending farts.

City roads were well made and lasted for long years without any pot holes. The one in front of our house was smooth and never needed repairs in my father's entire stay of eighteen years !

At four rupees a kilogram Ghee was the popular medium for cooking. Poor people generally used mustard oil for cooking in north India. DALDA had just arrived in its famous yellow tin. Pasturised butter was yet to come - fresh butter and tinned butter were available in Polson, kaventers brands but the most sought after fresh butter was Aligarh's C.D.F. (abbreviation of Government's Central Dairy Farm) butter.

A donkey with a load of clothes, followed by the washerman, was a common sight on the roads. Clothes were collected from homes for washing and delivered back, mercilessly washed and ironed, after a week.It was usual to find some buttons missing after each wash.Detergent powder and Lalita ji came later and washing machines later still. The most famous washing soap-cake for home-wash, in bright yellow wrapper, was SUNLIGHT SOAP at five annas for a big cake.

The (now ubiquitous) cooking-gas in red cylinders came much later and one had to choose between coal or firewood for cooking. Firewood was used in a home-made chulha made of bricks and clay. Every kitchen had a chimney on the roof to let out the bellowing smoke.

Khaki half pants with suspenders (called GALLICE then) were still there though not very common and in my childhood I had seen some decent visitors sitting in half pants and gallice in our drawing room. Suspenders (gallice) were used to hold trousers as well .

Those were the days when the world believed in the adage "spare the rod and spoil the child". All senior citizens reading this must have had their share of suffering at the hands of the master-sahebs (mas'sab in short). That was, then, a part of the growing up exercise.

There were other things too in THOSE DAYS such as the Blotting paper, copying pencils, holder pens with pure copper pink colour G nibs, manual ceiling fans, gramophones , candlestick telephones and so on.

That will be for another time !

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