My kids will do it differently...

Some years ago I was a kid and it was Christmas vacations for me and my friends from other schools. The day used to start with we cycling and jogging with out friends in the morning at about 7. Did it till we were hungry and came back home for a quick snack and off to play again. But now it is still Christmas and school children are nowhere to be seen but on Facebook. The essence of childhood lost; perhaps redefined!

Back then the only account I knew was a bank account and the word "mobile" was an adjective and not a noun. I first saw a mobile when I was in my 11th Std that to a Nokia 3310. Now people don't even know it existed and those who knew it know it is prehistoric now. Kids now have phone with GPRS and EGDE; almost 3G now!

Travelling from Mumbai to Pune used to take a gruelling 3hours without traffic that too. But now we have the expressway and it hardly take 2hours to cover those 195 Kms of best road in the country. Bandra-Worli sealink didnt even exist and we didnt know whats load shedding. Now we know what is load-shedding and its already history.

15 years back there we no private channels and only DD1/DD2; watching on TV sets that had no remote but a knob to change channels. I grew up watching Ramayan, Mahabharat and Mogli. Now we have at least 5 channels in each of the vernacular languages of India. Hockey and Cricket were the only games the country watched with great fervour. Dyan Chand, Dhanraj Pillai, Sachin and Ganguly were our Gods. Still the fervour has not subdued but we have taken new pride in following Saina Nehwal, Somdev, Narain Karthikeyan nad Force India. Petrol was 20Rs/Lit and call cost 15Rs/Min. Now petrol is 60Rs/Lit and STD call cost is 0.36Rs/Min. Inflation growing at a steady pace while cost of services falling. Has the harbinger of runaway-prices shown its face? No it has just indicated to us that we're living in a world where resources and we have been using things for our greed rather than need!

The time it took for the Radio to reach an audience of 50 Million was 38 years; TV 13 years; Internet 4 years; iPod 3 years and Facebook 2 years. More words have been added to the dictionary in the past 10 years than in the last 250 years. The amount of information a person comes across in a week of newspaper is more than what he would have come across  in 18th century. Times are changing really fast and so are the social norms. 20 years down the line Christmas trees will be there but will be made of holograms instead!! :P