The Nostalgic Eighties

It has become a pastime of ours to label and subdivide history. This is perhaps necessary because of our limited imagination and inability to think of events and people beyond one line that captures their essence. In the age of precis and epithets, there were the Roaring Twenties, the Fabulous Forties, the Swinging Sixties and the Naughty Nineties. They captured the cultural milieu of their time and worded the imagination of its people but they were at best wholesale generalisations -- lopsided in favour of men and women at the outer envelope of society who made the news and set its trends. A better sense of history is that of the personal kind. I was born at the turn of the decade, and that gives me special leave to sketch and shade the Eighties as I lived through it in India which I shall do so returning to the device of the one-word zeitgeist. These are brandnames, ad slogans, places, people, television serials, movies -- just about anything that defined the images I saw, the sounds I heard, the propaganda I was fed, the news that was censored from me, the maps we were taught, the religion I followed, the comics I read.

Television

Doordarshan, Bussesir and Hum Log, Buniyaad, Hum Hindustani, Discovery of India -- Bharat Ek Khoj, Sutta Mutta, Munnota, Bisilu Kudre, Crazy Colonel, Mala-D -- Hum Do Hamaare Do, Deluxe Nirodh -- Pyaar hua Ekraar Hua, Ramandand Sagar and Ramayan -- Arun Govil Deepika Chikalia, B.R. Chopra and Mahabharat -- Arjun Nishant Bharadwaj Gajendra Chauhan Nazneen Puneet Essar Gufi Paintal, Polio vaccine, Ek Chidiya Anek Chidiya Daana Chugne Baith Rahi Hai, Oral Rehydration Solution, Satyajit Ray in a wheelchair on a screen at the Oscar ceremony, Sorry for the Interruption -- Rukaavat ke liye khed hai

Brands

Utterly Butterly Delicious -- Amul, Prudence, Reliance, Natraj HB2, Ispat bhi hum banaate hain -- Tata Steel, Palmolive da Jawaab Nahin, Moods please, Old Spice, Vicco Vajradanti, Natraj HB2 pencil, Emami Natural Gold, Vicco Vajradanti, Laxman Sylvania -- Poore Ghar Ko Badal Daaloonga, Readers' Digest, Leo Mattel, Kelvinator -- The Coolest One, Lifebuoy -- Tandurusti ki raksha karta hai Lifebuoy

Comics, cartoons

Chacha Chowdhury & Sabu, Billoo, Champak, Richie Rich -- The poor little rich kid, Reggie Van Dough, Archie Andrews Betty & Veronica Jughead Jones Reggie Mantle Moose Mason Chuck Clayton, Hardy Boys, Hot Stuff/Stumbo, He-Man and The Masters of the Universe

Movies

Sholay, Gandhi, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Mirch Masala, Sanam Teri Kasam, Sagar, Nayagan

People

Amol Palekar, Ved Lipak (Kapil Dev), Amitabh Bachchan, Gorbachev/Reagan, Charles Bronson

Places

Sharjah, Amritsar, Golden Temple, Jammu & Kashmir, Khalistan

Memes and News

Rubber/Lover, Aakaash Ganga Surya Chand Taara, All Indians are my brothers and sisters, Cold War, Star Wars, Glasnost & Perestroika -- Openness and Restructuring, Congress (I), Curfew, Confinement, Pawara pataani (Power of Attorney), Galat Family (Galat Vehmi), Found the peanuts found the peanuts found the peanuts just now, Rocket under the blanket, Shopkeeping with pillows