This morning, a friend posted this video on Facebook:


Immediately. memories of childhood came back to me. Ha, those were innocent times! Such a sweet video. I often wonder where that innocence has gone? India has changed. Indians have changed. We have changed.

I remember the times when my whole family, my extended family comprising of my father's brothers, their families, their cousins and their families used to meet so often. Most of us stayed at the Chandralok Complex near Secunderabad's Paradise X roads. Every now and then we would all meet for lunch or dinner and have such a great time together.

Everyone was less busy. We did not have so many luxuries. We had the 'bare necessities'. Still we were all so content. We were all truly happy. We had one vehicle per family - some had a car, some had a scooter. Still, no one complained.

When I think about when all this changed, I feel it is when Manmohan Singh and Narasimha Rao brought about liberalization in the 90s that things changed. After this gradually, we all suddenly grew up as a population.

I am not for a moment suggesting that it was wrong or not good for liberalization to have happened. But it did have a flip side as well. India, as a country grew up then. And lost her innocence.