Trends

Back in the early 90s, a contribution of ₹ 2.00 to the earnings of Oven Fresh Foods Pvt. Ltd., Pune would buy you a half loaf packet of sliced white bread.  This was also the era of the World Wrestling Federation.  "Dabloo-Dabloo-Aphe", we boys used to call it.  Playing with GI Joes had become passé, while discussing the exploits of Yokozuna or Macho Man was the in thing.  It was only a matter of time before astute product managers at Oven Fresh Foods Pvt. Ltd. decided to take advantage of this craze by including a greasy little WWF wrestler sticker at the bottom every half loaf bread packet.  And quite obviously, 2 half loaves had always costed more than 1 full loaf, so OFF Pvt. Ltd. became a rapidly burgeoning business.  Meanwhile, collecting WWF stickers completely replaced more solemn hobbies like philately.

With the advent fast personal computers in the mid-90s, however, young boys were no longer sitting around trading greasy stickers.  Computer games programmed for the then powerful MS-DOS 6.0 suddenly became the dernier cri.  Boys were now playing Space Commanders, Frog, Elevator, Dave, Mortal Kombat, and Doom on their swanky new PCs.  If they wanted to challenge themselves, they would press the red turbo button on the CPU, and the little pixelated Frog would hop twice as fast and the annoying sawtooth wave buzzer beeping would rise in pitch and tempo.

In any case, I do not know what young boys are into these days.  I see that my almost seven year old daughter is into Shopkins, LOL surprizes, Polly Pockets, Jo Jo Siwa, and a few other things that I have selectively chosen not to comprehend.  I understand that changing trends are inevitable; I have no problem with them.  All I am saying is that I feel old when I catch myself thinking, “What was wrong with collecting stamps?”