Who are they?
Baby Boomers are the generation of humans born between 1946 and 1964. This term has come from the western countries where Child birth rate expanded altogether, principally due to post world war 2 conditions.
Not sure if this same name and reason can be applied to the generation born in India during the same period. But it is noticeable that most of our parents do belong to this generation.
Our parents in India, of this age, have seen perfect and striking range of changes in the course of their life.
Circumstances
They were born during the time when the country was just learning to take toddler steps. There was confusion, chaos in admiration and corruption and hence the poverty was inevitable among most of the families.
We have all heard of the success stories of our parents who not only endured the terrible times but also thrived with it.
They have been a part of a completely different education system which was not of much money oriented. Most of them didn’t have much fortune to spend on education. Going to school itself was a burden on their family, as they would lose an earning hand.
Technology revolution
There were hardly any good means of communication. Be it by road or telephone or electronic media. Their world was so small.
Then the slow revolution happened.
Trees were cut to make an ever-increasing need of houses for the growing population.
Houses turned from paddy grass roofed to tile roofed to concrete roof.
Communicating with the Letters faded with the arrival of landline phone, and then cell phones
Entertainment became a major part of their life with the arrival of Radios, which were soon replaced by Monochrome TVs and then color TV to wall sized flat LCD HD TV.
Commuting got easier with bicycle, faster with Motorbike and luxurious with cars
Race lost
Many were able to keep up with the changing times pace. Very few were left behind.
It is when the entire world began to rely upon computerized devices and tools for everything, this age nearly lost the race. Apparently, they became too tired y the race to keep up with the constantly changing, evolving world.
At this time, out of frustration, they started to fantasize about the early phase of this change.
The coping mechanism
They started comparing the lifestyle between generations and started exaggerating the ‘tougher times’ they faced in their more youthful days.
They failed to remember that the change happened constantly and not dramatically. Human emotion was always the combination of blissful and miserable state. He always compared self with the people around. Time to time there were different levels to compare with. There were always a set of individuals underneath our benchmark of happiness by comparing with whom we felt happy and the set of people over our level to whom we desired to be.
Life has always balanced, the happiness and satisfaction by constantly adjusting between these two levels.