Change is a process and it is related to History

What is History? History is, simply put, what happened in the past and the changes that happened in it that formed the world today. So, change is very important and change is related to History. 

In order to understand how change is related to History, I prepared a questionnaire to interview my parents to know the changes that happened in their living and life styles that has formed the world today.

My questions to my mother were 

1. Did your mother cook food on a gas stove?

2. Were there any street lamps those times?

3. What kind of books were available in the public libraries you went?

4. Were there municipal corporations for larger cities during those days?

5. Were there steam trains present at that time?

What I found out from my mother after interviewing her are as follows.

My mother told me that grand mother would use coal stove apart from the gas stove, but I notice my mother never uses the coal stove. My mother said that food prepared in coal stove was tastier because it was slowly cooked. I notice that sometimes we use electric heater or induction heater for cooking. I know some people in today's world use microwaves and electric ovens. So, the world has changed from coal stoves to electric heaters even in my mother's life time. I wonder what else is going to come, may be a Robot would start cooking for my family in my life time. Would that happen? How amazing would that be?

There were street lamps in other areas near my mother's house, but she said that they did not have electricity and street lamps in the colony that they lived. This was because electricity board hadn't supplied electricity to that area for long time. My mother said that her whole family (she and my grandparents and her sisters) had to live without electricity for many years. This was in 1980s. But now, guess what, there are solar street lights in the same colony where my grand parents live. I have seen it. This change happened just in 3 decades. 

My mother says she has never been to a library since there was no public library those times in her city. She says her school had a library but that was more like a ticket counter where she had to return her earlier book she had borrowed from school and collect a new book that the school teacher would give. She had no option to explore what books were there in the school library. But now, we have the largest library in whole Tamil Nadu in Chennai that hosts ton number of books that I explore. Change has brought more choices. 

My mother also told me that her city was a Municipal Corporation and steam trains were present at that time when she was young. 

My questions to my father were

1. How large were airplanes those times when he was young?

2. Was there any MRTS system in Mumbai?

3. Were there any kitchen chimneys in 1980s that your mother used?

4. Were there any digital clocks and watches when you were growing up?

What I found out from my father are as below.

When my father was young, he said he had seen airplanes with just 50 to 60 seats. There wasn't any MRTS system and his mother did not use kitchen chimney. There were no digital clocks at that time though he said his father used to wear a watch. 

Change is definitely related to History. You see how change creates History. By the way, today, I learnt how to add a process diagram in MS Word.