The Great Comeback

I find it amusing when I read that Gen Z is "bringing back" things we never really left behind. For them, it's a trend. For us, it's a memory.

I belong to Generation X, the last generation that knew the sound of silence before the internet arrived, the joy of waiting, and the art of living without notifications. We did not know what “followers” meant, but we did know whom to “admire’. There were no “likes’ for our actions, but we did have many friends of flesh and blood.

Music wasn't streamed. It was carefully recorded on cassette tapes. We sat beside our tape recorders, fingers hovering over the Record and Pause buttons, and every mixtape carried a story.

Long before Spotify playlists, there was the Walkman. Wearing those lightweight foam headphones, I could walk for miles believing the world had its own background score. Rewinding a cassette with a pencil wasn't a hack - it was a life skill.

Conversations were not about blue ticks and emojis. Birthdays meant buying the perfect greeting card, writing heartfelt messages by hand, and waiting eagerly to see the smile when it was opened. Quiet a few of those cards are still tucked away in old cupboards, carrying emotions that no digital message can replicate.

Finding a phone number meant reaching for the thick telephone directory or flipping through a personal address book filled with names, numbers, and memories. We actually “remembered’ phone numbers. And when someone called, the entire family answered the same landline. Privacy was limited, but conversations were richer. Photographs were precious because every click mattered. We waited days to develop film, and every printed picture was a surprise. There were no filters, no retakes, just real smiles and closed eyes that became family jokes for years.

Books had folded corners instead of bookmarks synced across devices. Letters carried the fragrance of ink. Newspapers accompanied morning tea instead of endless doom-scrolling. A wristwatch simply told the time and didn't monitor sleep, heart rate, stress levels, or remind us to breathe.

And till a couple of years ago, I felt that ‘our things’ will be items of folklore. Like dinosaurs, they will be mentioned in random archives.

But surprisingly today, I see young people buying film cameras, vinyl records, wired earphones, analog watches, and paper books! Thrift stores are thriving. Vintage fashion is fashionable again. Even the humble cassette is enjoying a second innings!

Perhaps this isn't nostalgia alone. It's a quiet rebellion against a world that has become too fast, too noisy, and too connected. Older things demand patience. They don't buzz every minute. They don't chase algorithms. They simply do what they were designed to do, and somehow that feels wonderfully authentic.

As Gen X, I smile at this revival. We spent years embracing the future, only to watch the future rediscover our past. Maybe progress isn't always about inventing something new. Sometimes, it's about remembering what we lost along the way.

And if you ever hear the satisfying click of a cassette sliding into a Walkman, smell the paper of an old greeting card, or leaf through a faded phone directory, you will understand why some memories don't become obsolete. They simply wait for the world to catch up.

My Gen Z sons often ask me about these forgotten treasures, and every question turns into a story. Perhaps that is the greatest comeback of all, namely,  not just old objects returning, but the conversations they inspire between generations.