[Hippie at Heart]

This one came as a fwd fwd fwd mail in my box, I thought its worth sharing here. Maybe some others would like to add in here.

A little bit of nostalgia....pls send to everyone who is eligible and also those who are not. To the wonderful kids who were born in India and survived the 40's, 50's, 60's and 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. 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 coloured lead-based paints. We were put in prams and sent out with ayahs (maids) to meet other children with ayahs, whilst our parents were busy.  We cried, were picked up and cuddled by the ayahs" (maids) and were quiet again.

We had no childproof 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, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags.  We sat on each other's laps for God's sake. Riding in the back of a station wagon on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We would share a 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 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 mumfalees to Bhel Puri to bhajias and samosas, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE  ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! There was never a child - not one single child -who was obese!

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. And we were O.K.   We would spend hours making paper kites, building things out  of scraps with old pram wheels or cycle rims, inventing our own games,  playing traditional games called hide and seek, kick the can 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.

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. We did not wash our hands ten times a day. And we were OK. Our parents trusted us to go on picnics with everyone and anyone, a friend of a friend would be OK and we survived.

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.

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!

We fell out of trees numerous times, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no compensation claims from these accidents. We ate fruit lying on the ground that we shook down from the tree above. And we never washed fruit. We had a bath using a bucket and mug and used Lifebuoy soap. We did not know what 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!  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, which changed what was good into bad and what was bad into worse.

Those were the days my friend!!

[Bigzero]

Yes, those were the days! Life has become very, very complicated nowadays.

Edited by Bigzero, 07 August 2006 - 01:40 PM.

[Casey]

The television was never on, especially during the day when we were outside.  We rarely had rides anywhere and often walked great distances.  When I did get a ride with my mother it was in our rusted out car with silver duct tape over the holes.  We were happy to have a car, and she even had the occasional smoke while driving.

We had sidewalks and were allowed to play hockey in the street.  We were smart enought to yell "car" and get out of the way.

We still had bad things happen, but a child who went missing 500 miles away was not news for days.  There was not the element of fear steeped into every parent which made them need to know where there children where at every moment.  We had privacy, secrets, and a childhood that included a seperate world inhabited only by children.