Such were the 90s!

I know what you are thinking. Here comes one more post on the 90s nostalgia, when life was simpler and we were truly handsfree; not just the bluetooth handsfree. Seriously, can you even imagine a time, when music wasn’t available on demand? The kind of effort and time we used to put in recording a song from a borrowed audio cassette is baffling. Clearly, the times weren’t simpler technologically at all.

Most of the families had one television, one telephone, and one music player. No Apple Music, Amazon Music, Netflix, Prime Video, and YouTube. Sounds horrifying, doesn’t it? Tell that to a teenager today, and check out that flabbergasted look. How did we manage to keep ourselves entertained without dying of boredom? Can you imagine watching a few selected TV shows with your parents at a fixed time every week?

Right now, I cannot stand the shows my mother watches and my mother doesn’t understand my fixation with fire-throwing dragons either. We watch what we want on our little devices and tune everything and everyone else out. Does it mean our connection is getting weaker or are we just accepting that we can enjoy different things and still be a family?

The 90s meant more family time because of lack of choices, not because we loved spending every minute of the day together. Family was a singular unit. Every small decision was a family decision. Right from buying a tooth paste to buying a car, we had to pick one and everyone had to get on board with it. For some reason, we never worried about it. We weren’t spoilt for choice, yet.

As a pre-teen girl growing up in India, 90s were super weird times. Ekta Kapoor was yet to drop the saas-bahu saga bomb on us. She was being gentle with us back then with shows like Hum Paanch. Who knew she would take such an evil U-turn in the 2000s? There were still reasonable shows like Tara, Banegi Apni Baat, Dekh Bhai Dekh, Saans, Byomkesh Bakshi, Zabaan Sambhalke, etc. Bollywood was such a disaster in the 90s, but it held a stronger influence on us. Enforcing gender stereotypes, glorifying eve-teasing, objectifying, and categorizing women was the norm. Now, imagine a girl growing up in such dysfunctional pop-culture. Those movies were giving me wrong notions about femininity, masculinity, romance, and life in general.

I was neither Tina nor Anjali (from KKHH), and I definitely didn’t aspire to be either of the two. I loved the dancing talent of both Nisha and Pooja (from DTPH), but didn’t associate with either. And don’t even get me started on the imaginary Maya (from DTPH). I was not the sacrificial lamb who would agree to marry her dead sister’s husband to help him raise his baby and I was definitely not a psycho vamp, maliciously scheming her way through life. So, who was I? There was zero representation of layered female characters. I thought I was so boring that no stories could be written about girls like me and so many around me.

The nineties were a mixed bag indeed. We were content, but aspirational at the same time. India was opening up to the world at a fast pace. We looked at NRIs with sheer awe and curiosity. The Swiss Alps in DDLJ evoked a desire in us to explore the enchanting lands beyond our shores. I agree, even Instagram manages to inspire us to travel these days, but it is still incomparable with the charm and magic of the 90s. It taught us to dream beyond our means, while appreciating what we already had.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right
I hope you had the time of your life

- Green Day