‘The ages live in history through their anachronisms’

Anachronisms by the Number 😇

#memoriesfromdiaries 💜

06 July 1997 

The Cambridge English dictionary defines anachronism as,

‘something placed in the wrong period in history, or something that belongs to the past rather than the present’.

Would love to highlight a few of those ‘somethings’ that have proven quite anachronistic by all means, judging by today’s yardsticks!

Firstly, the Inland Letter!

Well, most of us hostelers always carried those good ol’ Inland letters with us – since they were our only pavapetta means of corresponding with the outside world – be it with our past pals, our pen pals or our sibling pals! And an Inland letter cost us Re. 1/-

Secondly, the Dictionary!

Those were the days when, the high-renowned search engines of the present were literally unheard of! So our only ever-present ready-reckoner for gaining a good vocabulary was our dictionary! (some of our blessed teachers, we so gratefully remember, 🙏 had even strongly suggested that we also have a thesaurus on us, just in case we wanted to try our hands at writing, in the future!)

So in every dorm and every room, you will find, by default, a beautiful dictionary, usually in blue, glistening and gleaming, on each and every study table!

A hard copy of a good dictionary, back then, not only helped us with the meaning, the usage and the synonyms of a word, but also helped us learn the pronunciation of the word to a tee!

That’s hence we quite generously ‘devoted’ a major chunk of our precious pocket money given to us by our parents, to our dictionaries. On this particular day, I had ‘invested’ in like fashion, on an Oxford Dictionary (Advanced Learner’s Dictionary). And it cost me quite a fortune – Rs. 360/-

Well, although I’ve always had a little fascination for the hardbound book, this one proved way too expensive for me (Rs.545/-) And so didn’t even want to lift up my eyes unto that part of the stack!

Thirdly, the prices of essentials!

Quite surprised to note that, a haircut at the salon, back then, cost us just Rs.10/- (today it could be anywhere from Rs.100 onwards I guess!)

& your evening Bajji & Tea together came to just Rs. 4/- (Today it could come to around Rs. 20!)

and a cup of vanilla ice-cream cost you just Rs.3.50/-

to conclude, 

‘The ages live in history through their anachronisms’, says Oscar Wilde!

How true proves the legend’s words! 😍