India, Oct. 15 -- Ah, nostalgia. It is that magic masala that makes the past look better than it probably was. Yesterday's pav bhaji, eaten on a steel plate with questionable hygiene, somehow tastes better in memory than today's overpriced avocado toast in a cafe that charges extra for water.

Through its rose-tinted lens, the past looks like a Doordarshan Sunday movie - grainy, slow, but strangely comforting. Let us talk about the mythical age of "eating out with friends." Restaurants were just restaurants, not Instagram studios. The only influencer in the group was the one who convinced everyone to split the bill equally.

I still remember how it was in the mid-eighties. A group of us with little money used to gather at a modest family ...