My second childhood!

How right it is to say that old age is second childhood! Let me confess to you that the comic strips in newspapers engage my attention a lot more than the prime news section. After all, there is nothing novel in bomb blasts and the communists trying to deride the nuclear agreement with US. Occasionally, newsmakers like Tehelka may conduct a sting operation but even that is fast losing its glamour. Apart from the comic strips, I glance through the Obituary column to see if any one who shared my bench in the school has kicked the bucket. But I do get totally immersed in the comic strips and the brain twisters like how many words we can squeeze out of some six or seven letters. I even avoid all phone calls during this strictly private moment of mine!

Of the comic strips that I read daily, Hagar the Horrible and Bud Blake’s Tiger are my top favourites. I found Tiger uttering something in today’s piece that is not only funny but quite profound too. In today’s episode, Tiger’s friend Suzy sets up a fortune-telling stall and the business is rather dull. When she laments to Tiger about the tardy business, Tiger says ‘I guess the future isn’t what it used to be’! This, I think, is an outstanding statement. I have seen people getting worried about their life in general and saying the same thing about the present state of affairs but the comment of Tiger set me thinking. Can future be not what it used to be?

About five decades back, my perception of future as a lad of 15 was all about a radio which we could carry wherever we went and machines that would wash my clothes without my having to bash them up against a slanted piece of rock like a demented fellow! I would try to avoid going out on Wednesday nights to stay tuned to Amin Sayani’s Binaca Geeth Mala. When it became imperative that I would have to skip it due to some engagement outside, that was the time when I used to dream of a portable radio. But ask my grandson who is 15 now about what he envisions as future, he’ll talk of short-haul private jets that would carry about six persons at a speed exceeding that of sound which, he hopes, would replace the existing automobiles. When I hear from him what would life be like after five decades, he tells me things that go way above my head!

There is a community called Kottapillamar that lives in a secluded locality in Srivaikuntam in Tamilnadu. The ladies of this community are not allowed to go out of the walled conclave and some of them may not have seen even a train! I often wonder what would be their perception of future. Remember that delightful comedy ‘The Gods must be crazy’ released in 1980. The film opens with a Coke bottle thrown from an aircraft and following that, a lot of crazy things happen because the aborigines of Botswana had never seen a Coke bottle before! Their vision of future would be what we were a century back!

Future is not, therefore, the same for everyone. It changes from time to time and people to people. Tiger’s terse comment that ‘future is not what it used to be’ makes a lot of sense. In fact, the future fluctuates a lot more than the present and the past. We’ll talk about how the past is not what it used to be sometime in the future if you are in a mood for it!