Being born in the 90s is something one could really boast of- we have been a part of 3 decades, 2 centuries and 2 millenniums. While we still address ourselves as ’90s’ kids’, the majority of the ones born in the 90s have come to a point where mid-life is nearer than back to being a kid.
The ones born in the last year of the 90s are enjoying their last year of teenage life, and a whole lot of 90s’ kids are the main workforce and the driving force to leading the society. The question is, is it worth cherishing or should we be concerned? Let us make up our minds by the end of this post, which would probably make you nostalgic, and leave you back to the deep waters in which we stand today.
We were born at a time when the world economy had just opened up, and liberalization, privatization, and globalization were induced in the Indian economy. We have seen technology evolve from scratch. We have seen our dads from being pager users to owning the first Nokia cell phone, in the early 2000s. We all would have dreamt about owning a Nokia 6600- the smartest phones then. Video games, with cassettes consisting of 9,99,999 games in 1 was what most of us were familiar with, and a majority of us would have either owned that set or would have definitely played with it at a friend’s place.
We have all climbed upon trees just to show how cool we were. We have all played diverse physical games as children, from marbles to kho-kho, kabbaddi, chor-police, lagori, just to name a few. Chicken on Sundays and cricket on runways, was one tradition most of us would have followed religiously. We have been a part of those self-imposed curfews during an India-Pakistan match, or when B.R.Chopra’s Mahabharat was telecast.
You might wonder as to why am I taking you down the memory lane. I believe that every 90s’ kid would be with me on the same page. I want everyone to recall the conversations they had within their friend circles, before they acquired the citizenship of the vicious world of the internet, and also recall what activities they chose to be a part of before strolling on the streets of semblance cities of social media, in the country called the internet. The intention here is not to strike a chord, but trigger a sense of self-realization; because sometimes I wonder if it is just me who had a different upbringing and a friend circle, or is the rest of my generation happy to devolve back to being unaware about the reality?
I remember, that as children, me and my friends would to talk about current affairs, sports, science, universe, religion, world, history, geography, books, personalities, hobbies etc. Besides watching cartoons, we enjoyed reading books, collecting stamps and coins- we collected pictures of our favorite sportsmen, and maintained them in a scrapbook. We made best out of waste, and I can vouch for the fact that most of the 90s’ kids were definitely more productive as children, than they are as adults.
I believe that change is the only constant, and to give an example of the highly materialistic mindset- one wouldn’t want to buy a Maruti, after owning a BMW once. The example comes from a simple observation, that today maintaining a Snapchat streak is of utmost importance to who was once a 90s’ kid, eager to update his scrapbook. The hobbies of coin collection, stamp collection, picture collection and reading, have been replaced by social media scrolling, posting the same picture on different social media platforms.
The hobby of photography is replaced by clicking endless selfies, which are deleted over a period of time. The 90s’ kids use social media to brag about their cool life, which frankly, is not so cool. Social media could have been so productive, had it been used in an appropriate way.
The talks of current affairs, science, history, geography, the universe, sports etc. have been replaced by backbiting and pretending to be what we are not. We criticize our elders for comparing us with Sharmaji’s son, but we ourselves are more interested in the son’s life. Our interest for information is replaced by cravings for gossip. Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhat’s relationship interests us more than Indo-China relations. Our interest in reading books is replaced by reading 2 lines of those darn memes.
Does any other 90s’ kid observe this devolving shift, or is it just me who has failed to adapt to this dreadful evolution? Should we cherish our ignorance of the reality, or should we be concerned about it? Are we still the 90s’ kids, or do we have a long way before be truly growup?