Where Did Those Days go?
I passed three decades of my life. I did not understand when Mahalaya came and when left. But in childhood this day was very happy for us. I grew up in the village, so I know the village environment very deeply. It was the 90s, so TV was not very available in rural Bengal.TV was not available unless very well-off rich families.
Initially, people used to listen to Mahalaya on the radio. Then slowly when TV came in, people started watching Mahalaya. I remember when I was growing up we used to listen to Mahalaya on the radio first and then in the morning we would go to someone’s house to watch Mahalaya. Those houses were so crowded that one could understand that the owners of those houses were feeling very difficult and sometimes they expressed their difficulties verbally.
Because of being kids, we didn’t know what insult was, so we couldn’t understand the meaning of their harsh words. But during Mahalaya, when Goddess Durga would slay the Asuras, our hearts would fill with joy.
Broadcasting had not yet started in rural Bengal, so our only hope was Door darshan. When one of my same age no cousin used to come to our house, she would only talk about broadcasting we could not understand anything just listen to her words.
Today we are grown up and stay out for work, we don’t come home very often. All the noble houses of those days are almost all dilapidated today. Compared to that, we are in a better economic situation today and all those householders seem to wish they could go back to those days, but they can never come back. Maybe those houses today wish they crowded again on the day of Mahalaya, but that day will never come because today almost every house has a TV. So, no one goes to other people’s houses to watch TV
Times have changed with time we are also adapting ourselves. We have seen so many changes in these few decades so I don’t know how many more changes we will see as long as we live but we have to adapt to everything. I know there will come a time when we will be old and we will tell all these stories to our grandkids, maybe they won’t believe us. Yet they remain in our minds as childhood memories.
