Originally posted by: Santiago24
Hello Muggle!
I had res'ed space on page 1 of this thread, but I will share my experience here. 😊
I was born and brought up in a country in the middle east and shifted to India when I was about to enter my teens which was the fag end of 90's.
Great to hear from a person who has a slightly different experience of the 90s. It just shows the world is a bigger place.
To say that I can divide my life into my pre-teens (my life in the ME) and teens (my life in Chennai until the end of my engineering in latter half of 2000's) will be right, contextually.
While in the ME, we, kids were a potpourri of nationalities, languages, religion, etc.. name it the diversity existed. And for us, this diversity (which I refer to as diversity on hindsight, for it was the way of life as we knew it), was the real world. For example, I learnt Hindi from the Pakistani kid who used to come for tuition. All well, all normal. In all this, maybe coz my parents are progressive or maybe they made a conscious effort or maybe they just didnt believe in all the patriarchal BS, I for one had not heard a single word of gender related commentary at home, limiting any of the options available to me.
Wow..What a great experience you had while growing up! Exposed to different cultures and people is one of the biggest education we can get.
In all this, what jarred me was my visits to India. For a child who had not even hit puberty, I realized something was off in the way people saw girls. From being commented upon for my clothes ( No, I was not in anything super fancy. Just frocks, skirts, pants), to being frowned upon for talking and voicing my opinions to not entering the kitchen, I was not spared by people around for anything - I would turn out badly if I was not cut to size then asap, was the rhetoric my parents were constantly subjected to.
I understand. My mom was subjected to so many gossips too. Glad to know your parents did not subscribe that mentality.
Take 2 : I move to Chennai; this is 1998 and am about to turn 13. The first day in class, I was asked by my fellow classmates, if I was an FC or BC 😕. I had no clue what that meant. For the uninitiated, it means forward or backward class. I got the answer from my mom and armed with that bit of knowledge which I had been unaware of until then in my 12 year old life, I went to school.
But hey, it doesnt end there. "You are fair, you cant be not be FC!" Woah! Take that for diversity! It was huge learning experience for me, my shift to India. Exposed me to the prejudices of the society as I had an outsider's view of it.
I get it. I did not know what my caste and religion was too. I was raised by mother who was an atheist and did not pay attention to everyone's caste and religion. I am glad to be raised like that. I had to ask my mom about my caste because the school was offering scholarship to certain sect of the society and wanted to know I am in that category. That was the first and the last time caste was talked about in our house.
Not all was bad, I must admit. Take 2 taught me the value of sharing, caring for others, being part of the collective, meaning of healthy competition which were values that I had not quite imbibed in Take 1, as it was a highly individualistic, competitive scenario where being on top meant everything. Perhaps, the collective consciousness was to excel, as expatriates had left their respective home countries to make a mark outside and earn their living. That value system could have trickled down to us kids and reflected in our classrooms as well.
Now, coming to the show, while I do not relate to any of the set up of the show - in terms of the India of the 90's, Mahabharat, joint family or close relatives nearby etc to the idiosyncrasies of people, what I exclusively relate with the show, is the classroom atmosphere of Take 2. The template I realize cuts across the country then. Goody girl - topper - but future is to get married, guy - the achiever - the bad boy (invariably is the most attractive in the school) - love ( god! forbid, that is worse than contracting AIDS, to exaggerate a bit), the modern girl with 'short' clothes, shunned. In fact, what is interesting, in my time then was that it was the prerogative of the girl with questionable character to fall in love; the topper was Sita, could never fall in 'Love' or even admit to a crush coz that was a sacrilege; how can the Devi ma fall in grace so! So I understand the secrecy which Naina maintained or maintains about her feelings towards Sameer even with her best friend. (Though, initially, I took was quite irked with Naina's act of hiding it from Swati).
Yes. I too relate mostly to classroom scenarios. There were naina's, sameers', munna's, and swati's in my class too. My home life was much more different and progressive. But I can relate to raksha banbhan scenario, passing the notes, crushes, not able to talk to the opposite gender freely and what not!!
Let me stop now, this has turned out to be a very long post.
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