Going back in time has never been so much fun for the children of the Eighties. A dose of nostalgia is a click awayA sunday summer evening, there is not much to do when you are four years old and the calendar says 1985. The only thing you can do is wait for the small hand to touch six and the big hand move to 12. Mom comes running from the kitchen with tea. Dad stops solving the Sunday crossword, and the good old Indian family gets down to watching the box in the living room come to life. The slow cloudy wisps of Doordarshan circled our happy family. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what rocked my world. Back to present day, no couch potato comfort can give me the warm pleasure of watching my favourite Vicco Vajradanti ad while I had my Marie biscuit dipped in tea. And in the words of John Lennon, “I am not the only one.” The toddlers of the ’80s in our multi-coloured hot pants and milk breaths lived on the birth of television in India. It was our playground for exactly two hours every evening. We also watched the world go from black and white to technicolour. Ground-floor homes would have a crowd at their living room window every time a cricket match was on, and there was no T20 match; so you had the time to be friends with people peeking into your home for the whole Test series. Nostalgia sticks like nothing else. The latest in technology is a perfect platform to get hold of the past. Thanks to file-sharing, blogs and of course, online video-sharing, YouTube, memories are being cherished like never before. All for say a three minute 40 second slice of the old times or whatever a PDF Document of an old comic is worth. Social networking websites like Orkut and Facebook also have a flood of communities dedicated to old comics and Doordarshan serials. Mihir Joshi, a radio jockey and singer in the Mumbai band called The Works founded the first Indian comic club online. It was set up as a Yahoo group four years ago and has over 500 people on the list. Joshi says, “ This is a first of its kind in the country. We discuss about comics both old and new. There are loads of threads on the community that discuss the old Phantom and Mandrake comics that were available in India then.” The owner of the comics club community on Orkut, Rohan Monterio, says it was just an extension of the conversations he and his friends have been having for years. “There are hundreds of people online and downloading comics in different countries. And the most popular ones being discussed on Orkut are Phantom, Mandrake the Magician and Flash Gordon. They have high nostalgia value for us Indians. We remember our childhood discussing them. In the community people share the links for file-sharing for these comics. There are some who have been collecting them and find people with spare copies on the community,” says the Mumbaikar, who now works as a market analyst in Dubai.But the soaring figures in clicks online among NRIs are for the old videos of Hindi advertisements. The old ads like Gold Spot, Complan and Natraj pencils have YouTube users leaving a range of comments all soaked in nostalgia. A user by the name Dramamur says, “I miss our old B&W Uptron. The one that had a knob which I didn’t have the strength to turn. Well, we used to get only one channel anyway, up until DD2 We live in a world of excesses now. I was a kid in the Eighties and when we went out for dinner (once a month maybe), I used to be psyched about ordering Gold Spot or Campa Cola. I think it cost Rs 3 or something. I was a satisfied kid. Now, my nephews are spoiled rotten. I wish I could return to innocence.” Tiffany blue (YouTube user) says, “I can’t believe I actually saw this ad after so many years. It’s been almost 20 years. I remember singing “Goldspot the zing thing” every time the ad came. Gosh, now I am thirsty for Gold spot now. I also remember Natraj pencils. I take as many as I can whenever I visit India.” In this bygone era when endorsing products was not the greatest achievement for Bollywood actors, we saw Sangeeta Bijlani at her coyest best in a Vicco Vajradanti ad, remember the line, “Vicco ayurvedic, nahin cosmetic.” Kitu Gidwani also did swish and sway in an old Gold Spot ad. But if you want to know the real gems from back then, check out the Liril ads, where the Liril beauties were the boldest for their time, smiling away to glory under a waterfall in (hold your breath) a bikini! It was all good. And if you do look closer at some of the old ads, you will see some familiar faces. Ayesha Takia smiles prettily as a kid sipping Complan, a lean Raj Kumar Hirani appears in a Fevicol ad. The patriotic advertisements made in the time of limited animation and sound mixing are also still a big hit with those hitting their mid twenties. Ek chidiya, anek chidiyan , an animation feature that shows a girl teaching her little brother the meaning of strength in unity. This filler between the TV serials on Doordarshan still gets people glued to the screen. You tube user L.Pereira says, “Even with all the modernisation and new animation available today, this video rules. When I got to know about its availability on the Internet, I logged on and immediately sent it to my elder sister who is now in the Gulf. This video brought tears to my eyes.” Another big hit on YouTube is Mile sur mera tumhara, toh sur bane hamara. A patriotic music video with various famous athletes, film stars and singers coming together, it has over 3,41,153 views on the site. User Denizoran says, “I remember how this was a message to the whole of India in the Eighties and early Nineties when we (Indians) had newly achieved self-sufficiency. For the first time agriculture saw a green revolution, telephone networks were spreading, colour TVs were new to the country, Bajaj, Tata, Maruti developed the first scooters, cars and high capacity trucks. The country was set to roll. Truly the foundation of todays’ prosperity was laid.” These old videos have been uploaded by users on YouTube. Taken from old VHS recorded tapes these mini videos have helped Indians to go back in time. Print ads that appeared back then are uploaded on blogs regularly. From Jackie Shroff posing for Binny or a happy mother-daughter Krackjack combination. It is surely is a yummy bite of the old times. I wish I could go back to sitting in front of the television in a world when life was perfect like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens and the words Chitrahaar reflected my smile. I think I will get online.
