Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “puzzle.” Use it any way you’d like!
A WhatsApp forward amused me and at the same time it irritated me. The post was all about the good old days when life was simple and everything was just too good for words. It stated children growing in metros (big cities) today will never know how it feels to be a real kid! I wonder what that means? And I think of all those children who do not know what childhood is.
Middle aged people of every generation look back through rose coloured spectacles. Why do we do it? Was life really wonderful in the past? Problems are a part of life, at any stage. Do we forget them when we look back? It is a real puzzle to me. There were so many inconveniences in those days. They were a part of life then. We never thought of them as inconvenient. It is when we compare life now to what it was like then that we realise about the difficulties we faced. I am glad about the changes that have happened. I am glad children of the present times will not face the problems which we did but they will be having their own problems. That is life.
It is but natural for us to look back. I remember summer vacations in our maternal grandparents’ home every year. We had a lot of fun. Once we stepped out of childhood, life changed, we too changed. Some relationships remained as strong as ever. We moved away from some people. I remember school days. My father was working in Indian Railways and every time he was transferred, we changed schools. I do not remember any of my schoolmates. But Facebook helped me to come into contact with my best friend after almost thirty years 😊. We have not met in person after 1979, but we are in contact. WhatsApp has helped me to come in contact with some of my college friends. The internet has changed our lives. It has brought the world into our homes. I would not like to go back to pre-internet days.
Each stage in life is different. We knew a lady who had lived most of her life in North India. After her husband retired, they came back to their home town in South India. But she could never stop comparing the two places. Everything was wrong in her hometown and life had been wonderful earlier. She made it a point to visit that place at least once a year. But that did not satisfy her. Whenever we met the couple, she told us about all the minus points in the place they living in now. I used to feel sorry for her, because living in the past, her present was not a happy one.
On a lighter note, I enjoyed jigsaw puzzles with our grandson. In 2017 I was in Germany with my daughter and family. Advaith had a puzzle which need a lot of space. So, we arranged it on the floor. I was his assistant 😊. Four years have gone by and life has changed a lot, especially last year. Now he is reading Harry Potter and The Hobbit in German😊. My daughter told me that puzzles have taken a back seat now. I wonder what children of these days will remember in the future about 2020. And how will we remember this period in life?
Mukhamani 
Comments are welcome :)