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SUMMER OF 79
“If you care for me even one bit, please come to the library at lunch break tomorrow.”
I was worried. My Hero fountain pen was running out of ink and a Biology test was scheduled for the afternoon. I looked up at Ravi and asked if that was all. He considered my writing skills good enough to bank his love life on, only because he saw me reading Harold Robbins and mistook it for a classic with a hot cover page.
Ravi pondered for a moment suggesting that he needs to give “her” more options. With the air of an Eric Segal and courtesy the lyrics of a popular Hindi hit number, I lifted my pen and made a final flourish, “If you can’t be there, my love, I would expect you outside Lions Park at 4pm this Sunday. I leave the rest to you. But remember, I do not know how much I love you. But I’m sure of one thing – I can’t live without you”.
I do not recall if Ravi’s overtures were reciprocated, but the above gives you an idea of how difficult it was to profess love thirty years ago. That was an era sans short text messages, the Internet, Orkut, Bluetooth and all sundry that makes communication so seamless today.
Ravi and others of our class of 1979 regrouped in cyberspace recently, thanks to the power of communication technology. Unlike our junior brethren, it took us thirty years to discover the retrieving and networking powers of internet group sites. But to our credit, we found our long lost loved ones within a month of embarking on this initiative.
The rejuvenation power of reunion is amazing. The re-establishment of broken communication lines albeit after three decades, was a joyous experience. Time had flung us across different corners of the globe and reshaped and redefined our destinies and bodies in no small measure. But the bonds formed in those 10 formative years failed to give way. They not only survived the eroding effects of time but re-emerged stronger. When we touched base with each other, the present became an illusion and we turned kids all over again.
And like my dear classmates, I too flew back in time to the proverbial good old days….
With the clock turned back, I scoured the environs of my past and saw that it was indeed a very different world at that time! So different that we’d tend to believe that it was another life altogether and we’ve been born again now!
The fountain pen I wrote my notes and proxy love letters with, used to crack and leak forming dark blue collages across my pocket. Kids are lucky with their gel pens today but have missed out on that defining moment we enjoyed each day; the moment we gently constricted the pen pump to draw dark ink from the bottle through capillary forces - with the pride of a carpenter sharpening his chisel.
I recall with amazement that cars belonged only to the super elite in the seventies in our lovely little town, Calicut (Kozhikode). There were only a handful of students who came to school by car as far as I remember - the offsprings of a wealthy textile merchant, hotelier, Kuwait returnee and Income Tax Commissioner. And these cars were either Ambassadors or Fiats!
I myself used to glide down the slope from my school on my Raleigh bicycle (Hercules was the only other brand available); motorbikes (choose from Bullet, Yezdi or Rajdoot) were for the suave medical reps, a glamorous lot those days.
Floor sweeping bell bottomed trousers were in vogue then and so were “trendy” step hair cuts not very different from those sported by the Egyptian pharaohs of yore.
Football was by far the most popular sport in Kerala those days. Local tournaments had massive crowds waiting for hours to get into the Municipal Stadium. Cricket, on the contrary, was an elite sport understood by few. It often invited a mix of envy and ridicule from the bourgeoisie – the former for its complex English terminologies and the latter for its duration and timings “tailored to ensure maximum exposure to the sun in its full fury” as per cynics. It then defied sporting logic of any kind – going by the lack of athletic quotient and the bulky physique of superstars like Vishwanath, Prasanna & Bedi!
Malayalam films were at that time just transitioning from Black and White to “Eastman”colour. Prem Nazir, the evergreen hero, was a permanent fixture in most of these films. He was quite different from the present day macho men – preferring to express love to his myriad heroines through feather touch caresses and kisses, in stark contrast to the rough and tough mountain top tumble-downs of today. The seventies also saw the stigma of sex being attached to Malayalam movies, brought on by a wonderful movie on the life of a prostitute (“Avalude Raavukal”) which evidently necessitated the inclusion of steamy sequences in the script.
Like the rest of the country, Rajesh Khanna was an idol in our town too and tales of women writing letters to him in blood and jumping into the Arabian Sea in Marine Drive Bombay for unrequited love did the rounds.
Another key difference was the absence of choice – supermarkets were non existent and so were the plethora of brands available today.
No Pepsi, Coke, Fanta or Mirinda
The choice of soaps was limited to Lux, Hamam, Rexona or Lifebuoy
No Maggi Noodles or Maggi sauce, Kit Kat or Tetra Pak juices
Plug in mosquito repellants were non existent
Branded sports shoes were unheard of and so were CFL bulbs and digital cameras,
Washing machines and refrigerators, must-haves in modern day middle class households of today, were uncommon
It is isn’t difficult to think of a few brands that enjoyed near monopoly either
– Eveready battery, Tortoise mosquito coil, Dettol antiseptic, Amul milk powder, Topaz blades, Vicks, Nataraj pencils, Bajaj scooters, Amar Chitra Katha comics, Ponds cream, Cuticura powder, Horlicks, Vimal shirtings, Joy ice cream, Bru coffee, Bata shoes, Dunlop tyres, Binaca toothpaste (with free miniature plastic animals), Old Spice lotion, Scissor cigarettes, Sadhoo beedis, Carefree napkins and Nirodh condoms.
The late seventies also saw the advent of new products which are top brands today – Fair and Lovely, Gillette, Boost and Nirma, to name a few.
I almost forgot that the only ready made shirt brands available those days were Double Bull and Charagh Din – the latter requiring a trip to Akbarallys in Mumbai.
Breakfast cereals were yet to take the Indian market by storm. I remember my classmate Anil telling me, “Hey Sunil. You know what? I had cornflakes with milk at Krishnan’s place yesterday!!!” Until then my closest encounter with this mysterious breakfast item was in a chapter of Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven series.
The attire of the typical Kerala woman was mundu and blouse, with a white cloth or cotton towel draped over the blouse, the end of which was tucked tightly to the right side of the waist; and the other end passed casually over the left shoulder and allowed to dangle behind. This has now given way to the ubiquitous “Nightie”, a relic of the western gown, used during day and night having gained widespread acceptance due to ease of wear and its ability to cover.
There is still a lot that hasn’t changed in Calicut –
- Entertainment options remain limited to the beach and the movies
- Power cuts remain
- “Porotta – chicken curry” continues to be the city’s “official” cuisine
- Restaurant categories are limited to Kerala Non veg or South Indian veg
- Mundu and lungi co-exist with the modern attire
- Soda sarbath sells more than any other soft drink
- Women continue to invite stares and elicit sexist comments
I was delighted to meet Ravi recently after many years and finally mustered the cheek to ask him if he had finally got the green signal from his beloved thirty years ago. He confessed that he never did know as she did not turn up at the requested spot. Nor could he find a way to know her intent. He rued the absence of mobile phones and emails those days - having spent hours at the head post office each day trying to make trunk call connections to her number after he knew of her relocation to a neighbouring town.
Thanks to communication technology, our class is now in the process of locating more of us, obtaining confirmations and finalizing dates for the grand reunion all of us are eagerly looking forward to. And catch up on all that we’ve lost on each other, to “time”…
- Sunil Kumar
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