Need and Want

Growing up in Thalassery (Kerala State, India), which Jan Morris, the travel writer, elevated to the status of the most boring town she had ever passed through, on the strength of seeing the railway station in the early hours of one morning,I never felt cheated. And boring it certainly was not in 1942. How could it be, for a little girl of seven years, when the Second World War was spreading like wildfire to the Empire's outposts and new rules and regulations were being made and unmade constantly about how small-town India should behave:
There was the air-raid siren. At nine in the morning and six in the evening, every day. This was supposed to alert us to an air-raid when it happened. Us children barely knew the shape of an aeroplane, as we called them then. Very occasionally one glided slowly and majestically far above us and all of us children, my cousin the same age as me and her brother, four years older, would rush out screaming, 'aeroplane, aeroplane.' The sun on silver made that toy shape gleam and we had to shade our eyes and struggle to see it against the brightness of the day. The cats and dogs followed us because they knew there was general excitement and something rare was happening.
Then there was the ARP man - a new daily figure in our lives. We called him Ayaarpee. He wore a khaki-and-white uniform with shoulder stripes, which he was immensely proud of. He came daily at dusk to remind us to observe the strict blackout prescribed. Kerosene was rigourously rationed anyway, and since we could not afford to buy it on the black market, light was a non-issue.The house was uniformly dark except for a small hurricane lantern and a miniscule home-made bottle-lamp with wick plugged in through a metal top. These were carried from room to room as needed.
The house did not have curtains either - the number of houses in Thalassery, which boasted curtains was minute and could be counted on the fingers of one hand. My aunt generally sat Ayaarpee down on the veranda bench and gave him a cup of black coffee when he arrived. Milk was another thing we did not have a great deal of, so no milky white coffee.
My father was one of three ring-leaders who had organized protest against the 'British Raj' and had been taken away to some unknown jail. Since he was the only earner in the family we had to live on the thirty rupees a month the government gave us as an allowance to replace his income.It was equivalent to about £2.50.
Surprisingly we did - with a little help from our friends, as they say. Help as in a few half-sacks of rice sneaked in from the village, though it was a criminal offence to transport rice in this manner during the war. We grew our own vegetables too: okra , brinjal and spinach. Fish went off our diet except when we had visitors for meals.
New dresses just did not happen. There was cloth rationing for one, but we did not have the money even to buy the few uninspiring ration-yards. When our school clothes got old and torn they were cut up and made into blouses for the older women of the house, the women who managed our man-less existence. The only worry that nagged at me those days was my aunt's constant murmur about school fees, and how would she find the money for that every month? It was significant that this uncertainty did not apply to my male cousin. Girls' education was considered a luxury at that time. Many years later it was still considered a handicap in the marriage market.
In 2008, the world-wide recession hit India and many youngsters in glamourous IT posts in Bangalore and Hyderabad and elsewhere suddenly lost their jobs. Some had to take a 50% cut in wages and were relieved to just do that rather than become unemployed. Overnight they could not pay the mortgage on their bachelor pads, their cars, cell-phones, TVs and everything else, which had been bought on credit. Sadly they had no experience of hard times and were totally lost.
My cousin sister and I, now in our seventies, would gossip about this phenomenon, sitting on my veranda in Kochi, sipping tea. 'A small recession is a good thing - just to get the new generation to distinguish what they need from what they just want, want, want,' she would insist.
We felt virtuous for our limited wants. Many years after the war we still loved our simple moong dhal curries and spinach. Those long-ago times had instilled spartan habits, which we reverted to seamlessly when austerity was needed.
The sad thing is consumerism all over the world, India included, has reached a point of no return. It is faintly obscene. Now the recession this year seems a looming disaster, one that could be averted if we did not live off our plastics all the time. As Gandhiji said, 'No man can live in more than one house at a time.' Or use three laptops and two mobiles.

I-this and I-that

On the plane back from South Africa a fortnight ago, there was a young man across from me watching a film on an i-book. As I twisted my neck left to right and tried to find a comfortable position, he did not even attempt to sleep. Maybe, this is what I should do, I thought. Get me an i-book.
Except - I have this theory that I must not forget the past. Well, when you are my age, what you have is a past, not too much future.
Just going on a plane somewhere, anywhere, was a huge adventure when I started in 1957. Married two days before, I was ready to love that stranger my family had married me to, just for getting me on that plane. Days when you got weighed along with your luggage and the aircraft was a fragile Fokker Friendship, which rocked with every gust of wind from the Arabian Sea. Now I am so blase': I need assistance to sleep on a plane.
Careful here, I thought. I have resisted getting i-phones and i-books and all such, only carrying a basic mobile phone. All it can do is phone or text. No e mails, no web search. Come on! Is there anything in the world that cannot wait for me till I get home to my desktop?
There is my Kindle of course, on which I carry fifteen downloads when I travel. In abject fear that I shall find myself book-less in some God-forsaken hole like Blantyre, as I did once in 1997. Walking the pavements in search of reading matter when all they sold on the pavements was hard porn. Reading the advertisements in the Sunday newspaper in desperation, vowing I would never forget my reading matter again. So the Kindle instead of fifteen books as part of my twenty Kilogram luggage allowance. I call that a good choice.
So the Kindle gets prominence in my bum-bag. Along with my passport and survival plastic. That , I tell myself, has to be it.
Can you imagine the number of plastic tablets that the young rich travel with, even commuting to work daily? I-book, i-phone, Kindle... All soon out-of-date so they can buy a whole new generation of gadgets next year. They've got us hooked, those clever companies. I-phone 4 is being advertised recently. It claims to translate your voice into messages, which your wife can receive at the other end, no doubt on a second i-phone4 for the family. Can't we just talk anymore? Like on a pick-up-and-dial, or even a mobile?
Now I've got started on the consumer habits of this era, I shall not stop. Better save it for the next blog.