Do You Remember When Life Was This Simple?Before Wi-Fi. Before smartphones. Before the world got so fast and so loud.
There was a time when the ice cream bicycle bell was the most exciting sound in the world. When a packed tiffin box was the greatest gift a mother could give. When summer meant Granny's house, a Hercules cycle, a brown dog named Dinkuu, and days so full they felt like they would never end.
1990s — Growing Up in Simpler Times is a warm, funny, deeply personal memoir of an Indian childhood lived with whole heart — in the colony lanes of Bangalore, in a coastal Karnataka home full of coconut trees and cousins, and in all the ordinary, precious moments in between.
Written by a 90s child, for every 90s child.
This book will take you back to —
The tiffin box economy — where nobody was jealous, everybody shared, and Ayee's cooking made you the most popular child at lunch every single day.
Saturday mornings with Shaktimaan — when every television on the street went quiet at exactly the same moment, and India's superhero made you believe completely and without question.
The Salman Khan era — when Maine Pyar Kiya played on every VCR, the whole colony knew every song, and the tape recorder was the most important object in the house.
Granny's house in Uttara Kannada — the neer dosa that woke you up by its smell alone, the pond swimming in ordinary clothes, the mango trees, the cousins, the ghost stories that sent everyone under the blanket.
The festivals — Ugadi obbattu with generous ghee, Diwali crackers saved for the right moment, Sankranti yellu bella prepared a full month ahead, surrounded by neighbourhood aunties and the best gossip you were definitely not supposed to hear.
The honest confessions — the mango procurement operations, the doorbell-ringing-and-running, the cassette recordings made with maximum confidence and zero musical accuracy, and the singing stage performance that everyone agreed was excellent.
This is not just one person's story.
It is the story of an entire generation — the last generation that grew up without screens, that learned to swim in ponds, that read Champak by lamplight, that knew the sound of every neighbour's voice, and that found enormous happiness in the smallest things.
If you grew up in India in the 1990s, you will find yourself on every page.
If you didn't — you will wish you had.
Simple days. Full hearts. Memories that never really left.
