I informed my niece, a student in Grade 10, “In the late ’60s, my father didn’t have liquid shower gel; he used Imperial Leather or Yardly bar soaps.” She looked at me for a while, stunned, and asked, “ Oh! No liquid soap? How did he survive bathing?” It was my turn to pause and ponder how history takes humans in its stride.

I got it; for a young person growing up in the college town of Amherst, Massachusetts, USA, it was difficult to connect the dots between the days of the current life to the late 60’s. In this era of ease and comfort, a life when we keep wanting things to be more accessible. With the conversation, I remembered my late father, Shegufta Bakht Chaudhuri, and his taste in good toiletries. He was sincere and loved a simple life. However, he liked good brands like Old Spice, Yardley, Gucci, and Nina Ricci. He enjoyed spending money on books and would make weekends his time to go to used bookshops for a new supply.On the other hand, my late mother, Nargis Chaudhuri, widely traveled, never used shampoo for hair, always Lux bar soap. Her hair was long and beautiful to the last day.

Our reading habits somersaulted from paperbacks to Ebooks. My parents were voracious readers, and it was impossible not to be influenced by reading when there were good books around the house. I picked up Nevil Shute, Agatha Christie, Rabindranath Tagore, and more, seeing them on the kitchen table, in the living room, or in the foyer. Going back to generation gaps, the young people around me are not reading Nevil Shute or Aghatha Christie either. They are more familiar with young adult books like “The Summer I Turned Pretty” by Jenny Han and Star Wars books, and many other emerging writers, be they on screen or paperback. Some of Agatha Christie’s books are movies now, “Murder She Wrote,” but it seems they were better to read back when my father got them. The younger generation has many brands specifically for the generation, and most are constantly evolving with new flavors and ease of use. Many of our books these days reflect more on contemporary literature and the marvelous world of AI. Many come with promises of instant success, tips for rapid personal and professional growth, and so on. The books four decades back were like gentle lessons to the children growing up in a home- books that taught lessons of kindness, calmness, love, and the push for speed weren’t the theme. It seemed to me that in those times, we focused more on the quality of time spent with the wisdom gained through books.

The home scenario of daily life evolved. It seems like a sudden storm is taking over family- time; the screens: television, video games, social media, and other gadgets pull out our excellent connections made over dinner tables or the family living rooms. In real life and on the screens, families sit together but connect to other people across nations. The table does not separate them, but the communication gap often develops cracks that children fall through. Technology is necessary, but when it veils essential communication between the people we love and care about, there is a need to create a balance. The human connection of feelings and emotions needs sharing for our race to keep our kindness and love alive.

Traveling came with waves of changes, starting from packing the handbags. My grandfather packed his flashlight, map address book, and notebook long before he took his clothes. What my son takes is his smartphone. That small gadget has it all. The midway- I pause in my tracks and wonder how unthinkable it would be for my grandfather to substitute his travel necessities with a gadget and vice versa. We live our lives on a faultline of time and tide. We could list thousands of other daily rituals- how perfectly comfortable we were then with their uses and how uncomfortable we would be if we were to go back.

Let’s step back to childhood and dolls; three/four decades ago, Bangladesh had girls playing with dolls – store-bought or homemade. Little girls loved collecting dolls and having tea parties for the dolls; it was a sweet reflection of the family life they witnessed. Back then, we didn’t have the luxury of buying dolls; our adults made them with discarded materials, usually something the mother could not use for sewing. We gathered sari-ends to make saris for our dolls and had to beg for some black threads to make the hair. We had tea parties for the dolls, but we called them “ Putul Biye” meaning “Doll-Wedding”. In some homes, the mothers and aunts helped by arranging real food and letting the bride go to the in-law’s house. We were super rich if we had toy tea cups made of porcelain.

We could keep adding to how life has changed at home and outside, which is fine. Life is about transformation. For those lucky to have children and grandchildren around, it is a blessing to connect and compare the differences between childhoods over time. There is much to learn from our new generations, and we wonder where balance holds- what was good before and better now? And indeed, are we ready to face the changes coming? Life is forever moving forward, never backward- better be evolving in significant ways and small. Sit back and reflect while enjoying the coffee/tea, catching up on time and tide.

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Tulip Chowdhury writes from Massachusetts, USA