Change

I had been thinking about this for a very long time. Things have changed so rapidly and my generation has been most fortunate (or tired) being a part of it. Changes are good only if you are under twenty five. After that the ability to accept as well as understand changes takes lot of effort …. And I have begun to notice it becomes an irritation later on!

As a kid we were exposed to the first telephones in India. The boring black colored heavy piece of plastic with the rotary dial was at that time the most sought after thing. It was manufactured by ITI (government owned company) and we had a waiting list for it. One could register a phone number in few months but getting the instrument would take even longer. We also had the unforgettable experience of being able to speak to a person in another city using a Trunk call. Kids today would find it amusing that we actually had to dial the operator and put in a request to her for a trunk call. Incase of emergencies it used to be a lightning call with higher rate. When the call used to get connected we had to shout to make the voice reach at the other end. It was like shouting from Pune to make to voice reach Delhi! Then came Rajiv Gandhi and he revolutionized the telecom sector. First came the push button phones that were less ugly than the black dial phones and we thought "Wow!". Now our generation is using touch cell phones and voice activated dialing phones.

My generation was also the among the first few in India to see a television. When they were launched we had a grand black and white TV. Doordarshan was the only channel available and it was controlled by the government. The government of that time new the power of TV and refused to let go of its control. The programmes were for four hours beginning 6.30 in the evening. On Sundays it was an additional three hours in the morning. The most popular programme was “Saptahiki” where trailors of some of the weeks programmes were shown. Sunday was reserved for Hindi movie and the roads used to be vacant. We had only one film based song programme in the week – Chhaya Geet. People tried ingenious ways to make the blank n white programmes interesting. Coloured glass screens were fitted to the TV. This made the image colored, but it divided the screen in various color zones! For instance, if it was face on the screen, the forehead would be red, nose and cheeks blue and so on!

Asian games in 1982 ushered in color broadcast on TV’s. The time was increased to whole day and we got to see real color programmes. Later on STAR TV got launched and the cable revolution happened. Now it’s Direct T Home – DTH that too in High definition. The old world black n white TV made way for the color TV then the big screen. Now we have LED TV’s replacing the LCD ones. In less than a year 3D TV will be push out LED TV’s.

During the same time -1982 – video cassettes entered home. Home entertainment was film based and we could rent a video cassette player very cheap. The rent of a movie video cassette cost just Rs.10. Then came the video compact disks (VCD’s) and now DVD’s.

Listening music also changed a lot. Radio changed from a huge box to sleek transistors and now they are so small that they are also in a cell phone. Long Play (LP) records gave way to the audio cassette and now we have that too in a cell phone.

In automobiles we had Bajaj and Lambretta making scooters and Enfield and Java making motorcycles. If it was a car we had again two choices – Ambassador and Fiat. The government fixed the number of vehicles that could be manufactured by these companies. The quality of these vehicles was such that we would joke that everything except the horn makes noise in an Indian Vehicle. The roads changed from single lane highways to three and four laned expressways.

This changed largely in 1992 when the then Prime Minister Narsimha Rao and the then Finance minister Manmohan Singh changed all this by liberalizing the economy. Personally I would tend to believe that the liberalization was forced upon India.

When I was a kid, computers were known only to a select few. The internet did not exist. Today the kids would give up their life if they do not have internet. The first computer that I saw was the size of a huge room. In college I was lucky to have my own personal computer. The laptop computer is now replacing the desk top personal computer. Data storage changed from 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppy disks to CD’s and now thumb drives or micro SD cards.

Withdrawing cash from banks for expenses meant going to the bank, standing in a queue, presenting the “Self” cheque and getting the cash. Then go to the various agencies to pay them for their services. Now we are able to do pay online for a lot of services thereby eliminating the need to go to the bank itself. If at all one needs cash, the ATM (Automated Teller Machine) is always there. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has gone a step ahead and allowed withdrawals’ upto Rs.10000 a month can be from any bank ATM. This means that I can have my account in State Bank of India and withdraw cash from the ICICI ATM near my house! Now one can even transfer funds online or using a cellphone.

But there is still a very large room for further improvements. As they say … The only thing that is permanent in life is “Change”.