Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

Nostalgia is a very funny thing. It’s a disease that seems to strike people when they cross 60---- as it did to me.

Lately, I seem to be attending all kinds of reunions and undertaking nostalgia trips----- school, college, hometown etc etc. All of these trips had one thing in common; the feeling of how nice the old days were in comparison to the present.

I grew up in Kolar Gold Fields and this mining town has almost shut down after the Government brought gold mining activities to a halt. Time seemed to have come to a standstill and when a group of us school friends from the Class of ‘65 visited KGF recently, it was almost as if we were entering a ghost town. The sense of nostalgia was, therefore , more overwhelming than if it had been a thriving place.

But that’s not the point I wish to make in this article. If the old days were so good, how come we didn’t feel it at that time? Why was I complaining about the black and white movies we were seeing when I’m able to enjoy them now? And why am I so nostalgic about the steam engine trains when I vividly remember being covered in coal dust after arriving in Bangalore from Oorgaum?

The truth is that Nature has this wonderful ability to selectively retain all the  good experiences/emotions etc from our past and hold back the pains/sorrows and traumas in the deepest recesses of our minds . 

If we were given the chance to go back in time, would we say yes? We want the wide roads, lesser vehicles and fewer people of an earlier era. Do we also want (only) Doordarshan, Jutkas and trunk calls? I suspect not. What we’d really like is the wide roads, lesser vehicles and fewer people but together with the Internet, cable TV, smartphones, Facebook et al.

Nostalgia is a good emotion to have, but it must be balanced with an appreciation of the conveniences of modern living and, more importantly, an appreciation of present conveniences likely to disappear in the near future.

Switch forward to , let’s say, 2040.If you were to look back at 2014 , what are the things you are likely to miss?

Here is my list:-

1.   The newspaper and milk being delivered at the door.

2.   The vegetable vendor on his/her bicycle cart.

3.   The isthri person at the street corner.

4.   The raddiwala collecting old newspapers and other old stuff.

5.   The maidservant coming in daily.

One can  keep adding to this list. But the important thing is to appreciate the conveniences we currently have.