INDIA BEFORE ME

As imagined by a ’91 kid:

The British left. Chacha Nehru became PM. Gandhiji hollered for some chap named Ram and appeared on currency notes. Pakistan was formed; this is called the Green Revolution. Sunny Deol drove a truck through it. What about Bangladesh? It was always there, no?

The world was black and white. Everything happened slooowly. No one ever had sex.

Tagore wrote a poem about walkin’ it alone, yo! Some dude wrote the National Anthem in Greek. AR Rehman composed our National Song, Ma Tujhe Salaam.

All those Lucknowi bros spoke with proper takall…talak…takla…oof! There was no WhatsApp. Couples actually wrote love letters. Soooo downmarket.

People were like, poor! Only taxi-type cars on the road. No AC also. And when someone mentioned Annas and Pies, they weren’t talking about women or food!

Kishore Kumar sang classical numbers. That Ruffy fellow ruled the disco charts. Lata Mangeshkar crooned Dum Maaro Dum (I love that song, baby!). And there was that movie where Prince Salim pops out of an Easter Egg, yahoos down a snowy mountain and dies of lymphosarcoma of the intestine (My mum still cries when she watches it). And Guru Dutt toh I know only! Sanjay Dutt’s father, he is. Acted in Munnabhai and all.

Ruskin Bond wrote English textbooks. RK Narayan drew cartoons. RK Laxman (his brother, you didn’t know?) wrote about some place called Malgudi, but I just can’t find it on a map.

No-one ever got 90% marks. There were no IB schools. Omigod!

Milkha Singh went to Ladakh and started running. People used hockey sticks to hit a ball (Just imagine!). There was no FIFA. Sheesh. India won the Cricket World Cup in 1983. Of course I know the most important dates in Indian history! What took place in ’65 and ’71, you ask? Umm, India beat Pakistan in T20?

Mary Kom was born in Assam, or some such place. Nothing else ever occurred in the North-East.  Wait, isn’t that cutie Dalai Lama from Nagaland? See, I told you I don’t stereotype.

Terrorists continued fighting in Kashmir. Same old same old. Edmund Hillary and that Sherpa went there and climbed Everest. Omar Abdullah was born #hesohot #ilovehim.

Women started using fairness creams. This led to the White Revolution. As the supply was soon exhausted, an Emergency was declared. Sanjay Gandhi wanted a safe place where couples felt encouraged to reproduce, so he built a National Park. Operation Polestar was executed in Amritsar, and Indira Gandhi was assassinated in Jallianwallah Bagh. She was a nice woman. Did charity work for lepers in Kolkata.

I so know about JP. Jai-Prakash na? I’ve watched Sholay. Good job by Satyajit Ray (he won an Oscar for it).

In the 60’s, the Beatles came to India, dude! And in the 70’s, some cool folks started doing this drug called Naxal, but I can’t find me some anywhere. In the 80’s, Bappi Lahiri bought a goldmine. Rajiv Gandhi died. Narghis Fakhri reported it.

And then I was born.

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