Before - After

Today's babies are a lot luckier. Just realized this, after I saw my new-born nephew. There's so much of difference between today's babies and the babies of 1984 (coz I was born then).

Like, today, babies get to choose between a range of diapers, coming in different packages, colours, maybe even tastes. There's strawberry flavored, there's pineapple, and maybe there's even a mango (although all flavors are gonna smell differently once its put into use). We, on the other hand, the babies of 1984, just managed with a torn dirty 'dhoti' belonging to our fathers and forefathers discarded by them after 25 years of use.

Today's kids are photo-graphed, and have their videos taken, which they can look at after they grow. Perhaps its good in a way, they can see how dirty they were, and learn to respect their mothers a bit. The 1984 babies hardly know how they were a few years back, forget videos, there isn't even a photo of my naming ceremony.

Today's kids are absolutely dirty. They shit where they sleep, or on whom they sleep, they answer nature's call in the form of a musical fountain, and they cry and cry and cry. The 1984 babies excused themselves respectfully, went into the bathroom, flushed, and even closed the toilet seat cover.

A lot of money is given to today's babies. Money - which means nothing more to them than tissue used to wipe their private parts. The money obviously goes to the parents who use it to buy more and more of tissue boxes, and some perfume to refresh the room's atmosphere. The babies of 1984 were given nothing, not even a handful of change, and even if someone gave something, we do not know about it. Right now, I maintain my nephew's finances, so he can be assured his money is not gonna go anywhere else.

Babies sleep a lot and cry a lot. They are placed in expensive cradles, made to wear branded clothing, which comes even with a fancy hat, mosquito-net is provided, toys are all electronic and mostly require 4 batteries to work, and everyone pampers and adores the little one. The 1984 babies were real survivors. Our cradle (if it can be called one) was made from a bunch of discarded bed-sheets and worn out ropes. No mosquito nets, we wore pieces of cloth, our toys were not costlier than a piece of a stick.

Inspite of all these facilities, babies today refuse to speak anything for almost an year. Perhaps they are shocked and speechless looking at all their amenities. They are dirty, they don't clean up their stuff, they don't walk properly, they cry, their noses run, and they are lazy. I am sure you wouldn't believe if I said I used to wake up at 5-30am every morning and do Yoga exercises, when I was hardly 4 months old. Ok, thats too much exaggeration, but the point is, the 1984 babies are the best when it comes to survival. Full stop !!