It is Plastic world.....I want to escape from this....

As I surf for channels in my TV, I long for the time when we were left with just 2 options DD1 or DD2 with an utterly boring “vayalum Vaazvum” or a camera conscious interview in one....our choice was mostly limited to one and we would wait to get back to school/college to discuss that program. The songs in “oliyum oliyum”, old movies with contrived dialogues, what happened to lallu,nanhe,badki,machli and chutki in Hum log, Shah Rukh in “Fauji”,the ever green advertisements washing powder nirma, only vimal...... It was never “non-stop kondattam”.....but it was never stale.... The finer things in life were appreciated... Once my cousin told me that whatever was a luxury to us is a necessity now. How true...I often wonder if it is the buying power that has increased or the adaptability that has decreased. Gone are the days when we used to be packed off during holidays to our relatives’ houses.....we never minded sharing of the same room by even 10 odd people....we used to run around in the streets playing “thirundan-police” or “kalla-mana”...we used to have tiny dramas inside the house and the story of it always took its own course....piled pillows were mountains...paper bits were flowers....one of us would even take turns to become tiger or peacock in historical plays....snacks were not aplenty...but when we did get them it was taken care to see that every bit was finished....I remember the time in Tambaram MCC campus...we went without power for almost 2 days because of rain...we really enjoyed ourselves hearing the latest in a tiny transistor...coming out and looking at the intensity of rain.... our snack was toasted arirsi appalam...and it really was bliss....we used to wrestle for kumudam, vikatan, ambulimama, pesumpadam etc....we get so many varieties of icecream now...but none tastes like the one my brother sriram made for me out of a mix...we scraped the last bit of it. I still preserve the stapled gokulams my brother baskar made for me way back in 1978..... even my little daughter feels that these issues are way better than the present ones. There was no messaging, no emails, no social networking.....but communication was never a problem...we always felt close to each other. Shopping meant carrying a couple of bags...not getting your merchandise filled into impersonal plastic bags....off late I promised myself that to prevent global warming I will carry my own bags...but then what am I going to do to come out of this plastic life......I long for it as I sit down again to log onto my email...