Hamara Bachpan - Came across a lovely article

Came across a lovely article for those of Us Born between 1930 - 1979 in India.

First, we survived being born to mothers who worked and worked while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate Ghee, and didn't get tested and tested 100 times in 9 months.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in cradles covered with brightly colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bicycles, we had
no helmets on our heads.

As infants & children, we would rarely ride in cars and if we did we had no seat belts, no air bags.
Only bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in a double-decker bus on the top floor was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle ( Forget Mineral water ).

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.

We ate cake made with Fat, real butter. We sipped on gola and pepsi ice candy.

And, we weren't overweight. WHY?

Because we were always outside playing....that's why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day & we were back only when the streetlights came on..

No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were OKAY.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scrap and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After crashing into the bushes a few times, we learnt to solve the problems.

We did not have Play stations, Nintendo's and X-boxes.
There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable,
no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's,
no cell phones, no personal computers,
no Internet and no chat rooms.

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and
found them! Never required a networking site.

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth

We would get spankings with belts, canes, or just a
bare hand and no one would call child services to
report abuse.

We ate imli, karbanda, kala namak made from dirt, and
the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given Bata shoes and 1 full pant for our 10th birthdays,

We made games with sticks, scrap and pebbles .

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Imagine that!!

These generations have 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.

If YOU are one of them, CONGRATULATIONS!

While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.

And dont forget to tell them that we had a subject called letter writing, they might grow up without writing a single letter in their life.