Chander Gupta
When I was a kid, a primary school student, ‘Dalima’ brand of glucose biscuits were very much in vogue. ‘Dalima’ biscuits were particularly consumed with tea in middle-class households like ours. Both elders and youngsters dipped the biscuits into the cup of hot tea before taking a soaked bite. The biscuit packet was small-sized, wrapped in signature style. One day I was sent to the corner grocery store to buy packets of ‘Dalima’. The shopkeeper handed me the biscuits with familiar packaging in exchange for its price in cash. Triumphantly I returned home having run an errand as a kid.
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At home, the tea was ready with all the family members huddled together in the hall. Picking up the biscuit packet to open the wrapper, an elder noticed that it was not ‘Dalima’ but ‘Dadima’ (Hindi word for grandmother). The wrapper deceptively displayed the similar design with ‘Dadima’ printed in the same signature style as on the original ‘Dalima’ packaging. Only one letter ‘L’ had been replaced with the letter ‘D’. Anybody would have been tricked by such clever copying, but for the keen eye of the elder in our household.
When I was a kid, the deliveries of babies used to take place at home only. Nowadays, expecting mothers are taken to maternity nursing homes for delivery of babies. The deliveries of all of us four siblings took place at home. A ‘Dai’ (indigenous nurse) did the honours.
Being a kid, I used to wonder as to where did the babies emerge from. The expectant mother in labour pains was confined to a room where only other ladies of the house and the ‘dai’ were allowed in. After the baby was born, the members of the family were told about the gender of the new-born. As a child, I was curious as to where the baby came from. I naively presumed that the baby came out from the mouth of the lady in labour pains. Obviously, it was much later in life that I came to learn the reality as to which part of female anatomy did the baby flush out.
As I was about to turn 10 years old in the year 1969, an epochal event left an indelible imprint on my impressionable mind. The first manned flight, Apollo 11, landed on the moon on July 20,1969. I turned 10 on September 18, 1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the lunar surface. We did not have a television set at our home in 1969, as TVs had not yet caught on in India. We heard the news on radios and transistors. As the radio relayed the news about the landing of man on the moon, members of our household were overawed. Kids were also told about the event in wonderment. Though I was barely 10, I absorbed the news with keen interest. I felt an emotion of pride that a member of the human race had set foot on the moon. Intriguingly it has now been more than 50 years since the last crewed mission landed on the moon.
