Joint family to WhatsApp groups

Sharing was the order of the day- Nostalgic memories about joint family



Those who have lived through the transition from ideal joint family of pre-1950's, broken joint family still living together with several kitchens in the same premises that followed, total break-up and molecular families of the last quarter of 20th century and the present "WhatsApp families" (On-screen interaction, video-conferencing among those sitting in the same room and in different continents with varying time-zones) will enjoy more, reading this article.
I've gone through the experiences of some of the stages mentioned above. 
At the time of my birth (early 1940's) our ancestral house and a joint family of a couple of scores of members was still there. The kitchen-cum-dining hall, which had direct access to well water, was 40'x60'.
As I grew up, there was a time when the residents there had split into 5 or 6 groups, staying in the same premises, each group taking care of itself with separate accounting and cooking arrangements. A mini-India, with abject poverty, middle class and the well off under the same roof. This situation continued till family partition in early 1960's.
Now that family has hundreds of members spread over different parts of the world. At the last count, Bangalore alone there were 40 members from the family.


M G Warrier

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