Madras during Y2k - Nostalgia

The decade comes to a close this year and that made me retrospect on what has been in the last 10 years. From a personal point of view, I have grown a lot. No really, I have grown from just entering teenage to almost nearing the 'Hill' (25). For those who know me, may not agree at my intellectual growth but no one can deny me my physical :). Anyway, coming back, this decade has seen some of the fastest growth in the conscience of Indian society and the economy (GDP and all those feel good things). I would like to take you back in time when the year 2000 had started and draw a comparison of what was and what is not. Some of them would by my personal experiences as a kid growing up in Mylapore, Chennai. So...The 2000s were times when

1. My dad used to fill petrol in his bike for 100 Rs and he used to get 3.6 odd litres. You do the number comparison with the prices today

2. Cafe coffee day wasn't the obvious place to go for treats. Kaizhandi bhavan probably was

3. Pepsi was introduced in can and was 18 Rs per can. Was mighty pricey. Who cared about cans when the good ol' annachi kada bottle was there

4. Balcony ticket in Sathyam cost Rs 40. And Sathyam itself was just another cinema hall. Ranked among woodlands and devi

5. Talking about cinema halls, pilot theatre in Royapettah showcased adult movie those days. Hot spot, literally

6. Scooty was the 'in' thing. Guys and girls alike. Imagine guys driving a scooty now.

7. Houses in mylapore could be bought for Rs 20 lakhs.

8. School fees was Rs 500 a month and that was the higher end

9. Anna Univ was only CEG, MIT and ACTECH. All others were under madras university

10. Azharuddin was captain

11. Amitabh was bankrupt and was making movies like Suryavamsham and Mrityudata

12. Madhavan was every girl's dream. Surya and Vikram looked bad. And Vijay...

13. Pizzas could be made only at pizza hut or dominos. Noone else knew how they were made

14. Pencil boxes used to be b'day gifts

15. Distributing eclairs for Birthday at school was the norm. Anything less and you don't have the 'coolness factor'. Anything more and you were uber rich.

16. Saravana store was primarily a 'pathra kada'

17. Ladies used to buy jewellery in chit funds

18. Opel astra, ford escort were the luxury cars. Maruti 800 was still the first step to prosperity. Maruti Zen was the second

19. Mobile phones existed. But at 8 Rs per minute. RPG Pagers were the 'in' thing. Everyone made sure people looked at their hips.

20. 20GB hard disks were advanced category. 600 Mhz processor was the fastest thing. It wasn't hard to find 1 GB hard disk computers. Windows Millenium - 'nuf said

21. Road rash and Doom were absolutely mandatory if you had a computer

22. Rediff.com - Coolness coefficient increases

23. Velacheri was really an Eri.

24. Music videos and albums were the next best thing after movies. Remember 'Deewana' by Sonu Nigam that had girls fainting? Daler Mehndi with his 'repeat each line 4 times' songs.

25. Remember those big digital diaries? They certainly bought out my awes. Best gift items among professionals

26. 8 bit games were absolute craze. Remember super mario, karateka, spartan, legend of the kage? And those funny looking 8 in 1, 199 in 1 cassettes? Most of us didn't know a thing about Nintendo or Sega.

27. Boomer beat Big bubble to capture the bubble market. Yeah...Remember those tattoos with 1 Rs bubble gum? I knew friends who 'updated' them every day. They were the motivation behind Saif Ali khan's 'Kareena' tattoo i guess

The list is not all inclusive and will be updated as I remember more.

Vivek