Walk Down Memory Lane

Recently, I was walking by Mota Arcade (I think that’s the name) at Brigade road, and I was struck by a memory of the first time I had been there as a 6-year-old, and how excited I was to step on the escalators there. I think the excitement was less about the escalator, and more about the novelty of the whole experience. That incident took me down memory lane, and I started reminiscing about several of the things that have now become a routine part of my life, but at some point, when they were first introduced, had been such a source of joy.

Here are some of the memories in that list:

• The first time I stepped on an escalator (and took several seconds to successfully land on that first step)
• The first time I ran in the opposite direction of the escalator (and jumped triumphantly on to the other end)
• The first time I went in an elevator (and looked out of the glass doors on the other end, where I could nervously see myself go up)
• The first time I pushed around a shopping cart (initially, my brother and I fought for a chance to push it around. Soon we were fighting to give it to the other person)
• The first time I used a vacuum cleaner to clean the house (and also the last, as the enthusiasm waned, leaving only the chore behind)
• The first time I sat on a plane (and was disappointed to find out that it wasn’t as big as a train)
• The first time I saw a computer (how many of you remember that?)
• The first time I typed a letter on Microsoft Word (and was horrified to realize that hours of laborious typing had only yielded four lines on the printout)
• The first time I was introduced to the internet (and was worried about where we would place it, because the computer table was already filled with the monitor, CPU, keyboard, mouse and printer)
• The first time I saw a multi-storey building (and by multi-storey, I mean over 3 floors) which marked that we would soon be reaching Delhi
• The first time I saw a handset phone (and thought it was incredibly cool, because now I wasn’t confined to one spot in the house)
• The first time I saw a person talking on a mobile phone (and thought that people looked too weird walking around with their hands on their ears)
• The first time I went to a mall (which, I don’t think it qualifies as a mall anymore)
• The first time I saw snow (and spent the remaining vacation locked in a hotel room due to a ‘stomach pain’ *truth was I was just too cold*)

There are several other things I wish I remember, like my first train ride, the first time I jumped into the sea waves, the first time I went to the movie theatre, and many more…but I guess memory lane can only dig out so much.