Growing up in rural Goa in the early 80s meant that the only conveniences we knew were electricity (when it wasn't out), pressure cooker and mixer-grinder. Yes, the fridge too. Mid 80s also saw the arrival of the idiot box, although one had to wait till 630 pm for DD to start playing it's programmes, Kilbil and Amchi Maati Amchi Mansa kicking off the day. One fine day, Dad got an electrric pump installed in our well, and lo and behold, we had pumped water! The washing machine followed some time later. No more beating against the big rock, clothes could now simply be dumped into the machine and out they would come - squeaky clean. Well, mom never agreed they were clean enough, but it was good enough for me. The telephone came sometime in the late 80s, although we had only 20 odd subscribers in our village, our telephone number had all of 2 digits, and we needed to make a trunk call to call my dad, whose office in Panaji was just 8 km away. When the VCR came, we were stunned - we could now watch movies for a paltry 10 Rs VCD hire charge, instead of paying 15 Rs per ticket in the stinky theatres. And, we could record our favourite ads! For many, many years after that, nothing changed, until the mobile phone in the late 90s. And the computer too, is soon becoming a household appliance, coupled with broadband and webcam.
Today, 2 appliances are must have conveniences in my opinion. The UPS/Inverter to power-shutdown-proof your house, and the Dryer to get you rid of the smelly-in-the-rains half-dried clothes. Interestingly, while these are very cheap and have been around for quite a while now, most houses I know do not have them! So my advice for the day - if you haven't got these babies yet, go shell out the 30K and make sure you do not miss out on the conveniences of the decade :)
No comments:
Post a Comment