Nostalgia of childhood, relived through YouTube

Recently a classmate of mine from School posted this link on facebook. It was an advertisement for Pepsi, or what was called as Lehar Pepsi in those days. What is special about the ad is that part of it  was shot in our School, Lawrence School Lovedale, and features some of my School classmates in it.The school scene happens between 00:33 and 00:40 seconds into the ad.

I still remember the time it was shot. (If  I remember correctly) It was during a long-weekend and I wasn’t actually in school as I was spending the weekend in Ooty town with my parents. On my return to school, everyone was abuzz with talk about the Pepsi shooting. I of course was disappointed that I missed it. What was hilarious was that the scary looking teacher who says AHA was actually a scary person and the word “aha” was actually a part of his regular vocabulary!!.  Mr Bhopiah, as he was known officially, or Bhopi as we called him, was our physical education teacher. Bhopi believed in a policy of not “sparing  the rod” to ensure that the child was not spoilt (and some of us really bore the brunt to not get spoilt!). I remember the days of relentless athletics and cross country practice. Oh I must mention here that while I enjoyed football in school, I HATED any kind of running or jumping for competition…and that made it all the more worse!

Being in a  school with military traditions from the British times we had no option to opt out of hard practice…and Bhopi was always there to ensure we did it! Fat or thin, fast or slow, sporty or handicapped we had to run…if not, the menacing figure of Bhopi was sure to catch up with you along the trail and make you pay! Of course, when he caught up with you, you could be sure the first sound to emanate from him would be Aha! (almost in glee of having found his victim!). Those were the times.

And so it was , while watching the video on YouTube, I came across more classic Indian ads. This one for example on Luna mopeds:

 

..took me right back to when I wished I had one myself. But then time passed and technology moved in so quickly that the very benchmarks of life also changed.One of the comments left on Youtube summed it beautifully when he said:

“When I was Kid.. I wanted to buy one when I grew up.. But I bought a car instead.” !

 

I`m sure all of you remember this sequence:

Back then  TV meant Doordarshan! There was just one channel and it went off at night and woke up only at 5:30 AM! Often, when we were kids and woke up early we would switch on the TV and wait for programs to start. Sundays were a special treat, Starting with Rangoli in the morning while we sipped on tea and sat glued to those enchanting songs and were then reluctantly dragged off to church. But when we returned there would be entertainment galore waiting! Ramayana Mahabharatha….(mind you we couldn’t understand Hindi much but it still was a treat, what with all those colourful characters shooting arrows at each other!) followed by He-man and the Masters of the universe!! (and later Jungle Book) ..it went on and on,featured programs followed by films and finally wound up with “The world this week”( or was that a Friday?)

The above sequence would come on just before these programs would begin. We watched it every week, not knowing who those people were (except for Kapil Dev), mostly with full attention imagining wild imaginings in our childish imagination which I cant even begin to describe here, but sometimes impatiently waiting for the next program to begin! Those were the days indeed! (oh, our school figures in this sequence too)

Did I even think then that time would go so quick…all those days in school, when I just wished I would grow up fast, did I think that one day I would be sitting in a nation half way across the world and wishing that those days lasted just a bit longer or even that I would be old enough to be nostalgic!

What I won’t miss leaving behind in UK - Racism

Now, that we are more or less sure about our decision to return to India and are  getting more and more comfortable with it as time passes its time to think about what we wont be missing when we leave the UK.

Racism is undoubtedly on top of that list. Several times people have asked us in the course of casual conversations if we have experienced racism in the UK. Its a difficult question to answer, because the effects of racism isn’t always in your face. It isn’t always direct and it’s easy to ignore as most victims do so and it is easier to pretend that a racist incident is something else, a drunk person not knowing how to hold down his alcohol, a kid who doesn’t realise what he speaks, or as someone just venting his daily frustration. How many times have I heard a racist comment and acted as if it hadn’t been spoken. How many times have I walked away from a situation that I would have reacted to had I been in my own country. How many times have I seen something happen and not reacted because I am not a primary citizen in this country… would you call that racism? Whatever you would call it, a person in a foreign country is always not in a confident  frame of mind. It curtails his freedom and his rights directly or indirectly. That is why I would love to be back in India as a primary citizen where I need not fear for my safety or the safety of my family because of the colour of our skin.

Mind you, it is far more likely that a person is insulated from the effects of racism when in an upmarket environment where the security that accompanies financial wealth may bring with it a more civilised society or better disguised  xenophobia. It is also a fair observation that educated people are more unlikely to indulge in racism and a university is a very safe environment. However it is when a person ventures out to encounter the everyday life by day or night on the streets of UK that these ugly issues raise their head (There's always exceptions as revealed by the latest leak on high profile list of members of the BNP which includes professors and doctors!).

So some of you might wonder why I am speaking out on this issue now. I happened to catch a preview of a recent BBC panorama undercover investigation into racism. This documentary was filmed on the streets of Bristol hardly 10 minutes walk away from where we currently live. Watch the embedded preview video below. Its shocking but its real, this is what happens at  its worst, I`m glad we will be heading away from all this shortly!

For those interested in watching it fully the whole program is available as three separate clips at the links below:

Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

I myself don’t have the stomach to sit through it!

Paintballing – a little taste of war

OK , here I am fed up from being cooped up in my room writing my thesis, barely stepping out for days on end, fast losing motivation and the will to survive!. On some days work goes well and I feel great, on other days like today I will look for anything and everything to do before wanting to return to work and with Rosa back in India there`s little to stop me procrastinating…. and so it was that while looking through the photos on my hard drive that I realise that I haven’t posted any of these on here. So here you go - a product of my procrastination – a belated update on our paintballing experience.

It was my fried Bevan’s 30th birthday and what better way to celebrate it than relive the childhood fantasies in an adult way. So here we are in a place called Hamburger Hill for a bit of excitement.

Bevan and Morgane decided to go down the paintballing route. For those who have never heard of paintballing before here a little help from wikipedia:

Paintball is a sport,^[1][2] in which players compete, in teams or individually, to eliminate opponents by hitting them with pellets containing paint (referred to as a paintball) from a special gun called a paintball marker.^[3] Depending on the venue, games are played on either indoor or outdoor fields of varying size. A game field is scattered with natural or artificial terrain, which players use for strategic play.

and here`s a few answers to the most common follow up questions:

a)Yes they are real guns (air powered pistols)

b) No, they are not real bullets – they are basically gelatine capsules containing a water soluble paint. but..

c) Yes it HURTS!!! badly,  but we do get a helmet to protect our heads. Safety is taken very seriously here especially after someone got shot in the eye and went blind!

Anyway, Morgane being extra protective of her boyfriend decided to get Bevan a T-shirt with a bull’s eye on it, so that we could use him for target practice! Just a little birthday present (for us)!!

We were about 25 people and soon got outfitted in military overalls, not just for the camouflage but more so to protect us from paint! We soon headed of to the “play grounds” to collect our pistols, pellets and instructions. Basically we were pitted against another team and given tasks to do. Such as defending a helicopter (yes, real ones but broken) or stealing a flag from under the enemy`s nose….oh yeah, we sent Bevan to the enemy team, just so that we could shoot him too!

Unfortunately I had too much sense to take my camera in with me, and although I regret missing out on the action in pictures, after seeing how devastating a ball of exploding paint at 200 miles per hour can be, I am glad my camera sat this one out. However just to give you an idea here’s a video from YouTube

The video above doesn’t really capture the true spirit terror and excitement. I can tell you, that if you thought war was cool, this will make you think twice. It just makes you experience first hand the danger and risk out there on the battlefield…and this was only with comparatively harmless bullets which don’t kill you!

Oh did I say harmless…err correction. Here`s what paintballs can do to you:

Luckily for me I escaped with a few shots on my hand and helmet which didn’t leave behind any permanent evidence. Rosa was not so lucky and carried a few bruises for the next few days.  One thing though…the guns are heavy, and with every passing minute in the field, it got heavier. Manoeuvring it takes strength and skill and by the end of the game we were really exhausted.

Having said all that, we had a great time. Rosa and I even successfully defended a group of huts by the skin of our teeth and earned our team a few valuable points. I must say it feels geat feeling like a war hero! Bevan though, proved quite a handful, He showed great skill in not only evading our bullets but also in bumping us off one after the other.

My only consolation was that I shot him back in the last game- right in his head!

When our time was finally up we were more than ready to leave with aches and pains all over the body, but that was the most fun we had in a long time. I doubt we will get another opportunity to do this in the UK, so its a memory we will cherish forever.