WELCOME ABOARD
Podcast
A portmanteau of ‘iPod’ and ‘broadcast’, these downloadable audio files have changed the way you tune in to stories, debates, lectures and business gyan.
YouTube
All the world’s a video-sharing website. Since 2005, YouTube is Milky Way’s go-to not just for golden oldies, but also sushi making, knotting scarves, exorcism, et al.
Comic Con
If you like graphic (in every sense of the term), these are interesting times. The graphic novel has established a foothold and comic conventions attract followers in every age group.
Lit-fests
Bookshops are passe. Lit-fests are in --- interactive (some are also interesting) sessions with authors small and big, on possibly every topic (sometimes even literature).
Standup comedy
A live audience. Funny stories. Caustic, one-liners. Comedy is no longer about clowning, cat-and-mouse games or scripted scenes.
DEAR DEPARTED
Cassettes/ VCP/VCR
The analogue magnetic tape --- the one that once filled our days and personal spaces with music and old films --- is history. It now rests in peace with the video cassette player (VCP) and the video cassette recorder (VCR).
B/W TV
The advent of colour TVs --- now available in a hundred hi-tech avatars --- snuffed the life out of our first ever black-and-white telly sets.
Iconic bookstores
From Mumbai’s Strand Book Stall, Delhi’s Fact & Fiction to Bengaluru’s Premier, it’s shutters down for some of India’s most loved bookstores.
Old cinema projectors
Enter digital cinema projector. RIP 35 mm film projectors. The scene behind our theatre screen changed while we were busy lapping up the action on it.
B/W film
October 2018 brought the announcement that the iconic Fujifilm was killing off its black-and-white film and paper products. End of a nuanced era.