As I grew up and stepped into my teen during this decade, keenly observing & experiencing events around, it also was a decade that made me explore life! In mid eighties, I took my school clothes off , as I stepped into college, the uniform had to officially RIP!
"FastFood" didn't exist, and every dish was prepared at home. Mexican, Thai, Italian as cuisine was unheard of! Noodles had made a soft entry in India, but in South India, the daily breakfast was still the dosas, idlis and colored rice! Eating out at a restaurant was considered something big, a rarity actually, that happened only when it was a birthday or a very special occasion to celebrate with in the familiy.
This decade also reminds me that very few homes had telephones. A very few rich & influential apart from special people like doctors and senior government servants would get a phone connection and we got our landline phone during this decade, while for the people who wanted to connect & communicate and have all private conversations, there was a spurt in public coin booths & private enclosed telephone booths (STD/ISD booths).
We played music with a radio or an audio cassette, while the Sony's Walkman was a luxury which was affordable to the real rich.
This decade also released me from doing school homework, no forced hair cut… we played outside on the streets & the grounds around and sunset was the final call to board our bicycles to get back home diligently!
There were no branded retail outlets nor any store chains! The packaging industry as such was just making its presence felt. Any grocery shop owner would wrap you small buys in a newspaper and fancy packaging wasn't even a dream.
I proudly stick my neck out to claim that we were the luckiest, as we were the generation who witnessed the real transition to current lifestyle. In those days our lives as kids were occupied with Tinkle (Amar Chitra Katha), Gold Spot, Parle Poppins, Rasna, Bubble gum!
Very few people had cars and so was the Television. Sunday evening the streets would be deserted because everyone would be gathered in the house of the family which owned a television set. Even owning a scooter was considered a big thing while we witnessed the entry of Maruti 800, LML Vespa, Yamaha RX 100 and Hero Honda CD 100 thus cutting down the waiting period for Bajaj scooters during that time.
People had to carry a cloth bag for groceries or were packed in gunny bags and sent out for delivery on a bicycle. Milk was packed in glass bottles. Gully cricket was a big thing. Another source of entertainment were the `circulating libraries' which began to mushroom in the 80s.