new things

Hey, Christmas passed us by without Santa visiting. He broke a tradition lasting more than five years I think. Oops. Are nine years old off Santa’s visiting list? This time Jispa was spending the Christmas at her Nani’s house. Jasmine and I all forgot about it till in the evening. We then called Jispa to ask her about it. Oh its ok she said. I don’t want anything this time around.
Normally Jispa’s always a content kid. She doesn’t ask for too much. She is ok with what she has. So Christmas is no great occasion. From when I can remember, she was always happy to ask for some small gift, that too on being repeatedly asked. So I don’t really understand the stress stories about parents rushing to buy the Christmas toy. It’s so Hollywood! Possibly we still have some time before crass commercialization pervades our lives. I guess I am happy that Jispa was born at a slightly better time. I see it getting more and more commercial as the toy shops keep opening in the city. Five years back we hardly had shops dedicated to toys. I remember once going to a shop called big tom or something in Colaba. It was the only half decent Toy shop at the time along with another one called ‘souvenirs’. There is one tucked away in breach candy behind Premsons as well. But none of them were anywhere near the experience that Hamleys, which opened in Phoenix, provides.
So I asked Jispa – “do you really believe in Santa?”. “I don’t know” she replied. “serious, tell me”. “I think I believe around 70%”. What the hell. Ya sure. The kid is kidding with me. She is playing me. I am sure she knows there is no such thing and she knows that its dad and mom writing and gifting, but she seems to be enjoying the ride. I guess here I am at fault. Because I think that it was me who told her – it doesn’t matter whether you believe in it or not. You got your gift and that’s something real. Right? Hehehe. Parenting is a circle. You get back exactly what you give.
So this Year, jispa was not surprised and excited on Christmas eve. I remember her five years ago getting all excited about Christmas and super excited that Santa had come in the night while she was asleep. That video is my favorite video. You know we take a lot of photographs and videos. We see the photos immediately after the trip or occasion, but the videos are the real hero. The value of the video dramatically increases after a period of time. You want to sit and watch old videos. Somehow the photos just get lost. Possibly because there are too many of them. There are atleast two for every moment.
When we were kids dad had photography as a hobby. He bought an SLR – was it Nikon or Cannon?. He bought a set that included a camera, standard lens, a wide angle lens and a tele lens for shooting long distance. Then he went and got a slide projector. So he shot most of his photos with a slide reel which was different from the normal reel you put inside the camera. If anyone reads this post after 15 years – yes – upto ten years back we put reels in cameras. They could typically take upto 36 photos and then we would send it to the photo lab for processing and printing. So dad would have these slides that we would project on the wall using a projector. The projector was a really wild thing. No one I knew had one in India. (remember – we were a deprived country). So photo sessions were family time when the whole family huddled around the hall, pulled the curtains and watched the slides of vacations and events. It was a fun thing. We would even subject guests to this torture. We assumed they loved it. In India, I think they were just too dazed with all this technology to say anything. Set up the projector on the stool and start. The fight amongst siblings was to control the remote for the projector that sent the slides forward or backward. Just for the record the remote was not cordless. That was fun.
I enjoyed it so much that a lot of my photos till around the time Jispa was born were on slides. Our trip to Leh as well. I think I bought my first digital camera in 2004. Mom never actually let me use Dad’s camera too much. It was expensive equipment and we must use it with care. It soon rusted away with no real use. The wheel of progress is brutal. It is important to discard to get something new. Throw out the old to make space for something new.
The pace of this change seems too fast, it seems to have quickened. I think it’s just that we were not used to it. A protected environment holds on to the old. I guess it realizes that new will not come in a hurry. But if you break these shackles and constantly update yourself with something new, you will find yourself forced to throw out the old. Sure there is warm comfort in the known, but progress lies with the unknown. Not that it is good or bad. It’s not a value judgment, but merely an observation. Whne in doubt – go for the new.