As Time rolled on. .

"As time rolled on . . . . ."

Looking back in time from old age is an awesome experience. In the last few decades technology has taken rapid Strides.  It was so different in the past. Most of the things we use now were unimaginable Let me note these down.

Could there be a pen which would write without a nib ?  Yes, Ballpoint pen was yet to come when I was in School. Fountain pens were there but good fountain pene were a bit expensive. Most people including Students used ordinary holder pens which had a nibholder and a scratchy  nib.

It had to be dipped frequently into ink pot. We used pink colour copper G nibs. Unlike these day, we also used to keep a blotting paper handy to soak extra ink as we wrote. Classroom desks had ink wells at the upper right hand corner..And then came ball point pens for hassle free writing.

Wristwatches were then very expensive and most people did not have a wristwatch.

On examination days we used a borrowed watch to keep track of time. A good accurate Wristwatch then Cost over twenty thousand rupees in today's value.

Radio Sets were a status item and anyone having a radio set used to display it in the drawing room. Retrigirators were much rarer items and even rich people did not normally possess a refrigirator.

Transistor radio arrived towards the end of the fifties.

They were from Japan. Suddenly we had music while walking.

Pressure Cooker arrived in the Slxties. It drastically cut down the cooking time and freed the housewife of long hours in the kitchen. Around the same time came the cooking gas in red cylinders. It made cooking much simpler as there was no need now to prepare fire in advance either with firewood or coal, It was the beginning of the era of Smokeless Kitchen.

In late Sixties came electronic calculators. These were very expensive in the beginning  and for a time they remained a new status Symbol for the  rich class. It was only in the eighties that they started becoming cheap.

By early 80s computers were in use in many areas. Indian Railways soon started using it extensively. Slowly they were put into use in many other areas including astrology.

And then came mobile phones. It marked the beginning of revolution in the field of communication. With the arrival of internet we entered a new era, unimaginable a few decades back.

Yes , looking' back into this journey  is an awesome experience.

In the beginning there were Candlestand telephone instruments

and these were available only to a microscopic minority. Now even a daily wage earning poor labourer keeps a personal phone!

xxx