Those Good Old Days!

A nostalgic trip back in time to childhoods full of carefree lives that nurtured successful adults with an innate sense of decency and grace.

- Patricia Pereira-Sethi

A friend from my youth sent me a What’s App message saturated with nostalgia about the good old days growing up in India’s Big Apple: Mumbai. She honed in on our existence as children, weaned during the 50s, 60s and 70s, who eventually grew up to be happy and successful examples of lives well lived.

To begin with, we survived being born to mothers, whose husbands fouled up the atmosphere with cigarette smoke and alcohol, even while we were in the womb. Our mothers tucked into whatever food was laid out on the table, salt and sugar packed, and didn’t get tested for diabetes or any other disease. In fact, they hardly checked their blood pressure either.

Our cribs and bassinets were decorated with clowns, funny animals and cartoon characters produced with lead-based paints. We were thrust into prams and sent off with the ayah, to mingle with other children and their ayahs, when our parents needed time for themselves. Sometimes the ayahs were so busy gossiping with each other, we fell out of our prams, bawled out loud – they patted us over, quietly strapped us back into our seats and took us home.

We lacked child-proof lids on medicine bottles, doors and cabinets, and we rode our bikes without knee-pads and helmets. We took hazardous hiking trips in Matheran and Lonavala and actually crossed the frenzied Mumbai city roads without supervision.

As children, we rode in cars without seat belts or airbags. We sat on each other’s laps – and in the front section as well. Anathema today. Riding in a car on a warm evening was always a special treat. We were allowed to stick our faces out of the window along with our dogs to experience the air whistle by – how we managed not to have our crowns shaved off by close-cutting oncoming cars and buses is nothing short of a miracle!