Romancing The 80s: Snapshots From A Cherished Decade
By Seema Sethi
Om Books International, 152 pages, Rs 3,995

Living in the present is a rarity. We are either pining for something in the future, or ruminating on something from the past. Once this present is gone, then we will go, as it were, in search of the lost time. The only true paradise, as Proust said, is paradise lost. Or, as Dominique Bretodeau [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wLxVyAviJDo] put it in ‘Amelie’ (2001), “Life's funny. To a kid, time always drags. Suddenly you're fifty. All that's left of your childhood... fits in a rusty little box.”

For a generation of Indians, we have something better than a rusty little box – a well produced coffee-table book, ‘Romancing The 80s’, offering “Snapshots From A Cherished Decade”. It’s a celebration of our collective nostalgia for a decade that arguably changed India more than any other, except the 90s.  

At any rate, there is no other decade with so many dramatic developments that left the political landscape completely transformed – the assassination of Indira Gandhi, Khalistani movement, the first brush with terrorism, the Ram Janmabhoomi and the Mandal agitations.

For those who grew up in the decade, the era continues to be fascinating. Both a link to the old, almost sleepy India of the decades preceding it and a bridge to the new India of the ’90s when liberalization changed everything, the ’80s occupy a special place in India’s socioeconomic, political and cultural space.

In popular culture, this was the time of the hosting of Asian Games, India’s cricket world-cup victory, the first Indian in space, the opening up of the economy, the start of the information technology revolution and the incipient consumer boom. With the advent of colour television, there were not only Sunday evening films at home, but a plethora of serials that changed the way we entertained ourselves and also gave a glimpse of the world outside.  

However, where it resides most is in the memories of those who were part of the era’s zeitgeist. Seema Sethi was one of them. And in Romancing the 80s she explores aspects of the decade that were an indelible part of the era and are probably now lost forever – Nirula’s (though it’s a bit of Delhi-centrism) and audiocassettes, Chitrahaar and Doordarshan, disco and Nazia Hassan, single-screen theatres and Indrajal comics, Hamara Bajaj and the Ambassador, among many others. There have been social-media posts and YouTube videos recalling some of them, but this book collects all memorable events and things in one place. Its slick design and witty text invite the reader for a collective trip down memory lane.

For a couple of generations of Indians, this book will be a treasure trove they can go back to again and again. For those who came later, it will be a one-stop recap of those heady days.