Sometimes when I look at my two children I'm struck by awe. Their world is so huge compared to the one I grew up in.

Satellite TV, the internet, computer software on any imaginable subject has provided the gateway to an entire universe for them.

My 11-year-old-son, on the threshold of puberty has become quite snooty; dismissing my childhood years as the dark ages.

Indeed, to a large extent that's true.

I was seven when I first went to school hand in hand with trepidation and excitement. By that age my son had already spent three years in kindergarten and was deep into books when I had been running around barefoot and half naked; shoes and shorts being reserved for special occasions only.

This was in the late 1940s and early 1950s when the bus service stopped at Bungsar Road (now jalan) where the Unilever building stands; at that time Unilever was known as Lever Bros.

Our home was an attap thatched hovel of wooden planks with a mud floor hardened by a cover of cow dung several times a year. It was situated among a squatter colony along Jalan Ang Seng.

Don't scratch your head. That road runs parallel to Jalan Bungsar separated by the rail tracks. It used to lead up to Jalan Travers which ran into Brickfields but that access had been blocked.

The carefree days

We did not celebrate birthdays, only Deepavali; just couldn't afford it. My children are lavished with gifts on theirs, during Deepavali and Christmas; and whenever an adult in the family is overcome by impulse.

The grinding poverty didn't seem to affect us children; life was ever so fresh and exciting. Problems were the province of the adults, ours was to exult in life that would all too soon be over which mercifully we were totally oblivious to. This is the most enviable trait in the young ones, the supple ability to adapt to changing environments without question.

We knew there were rich people. But didn't envy them. In fact didn't even know the word. A complete acceptance of the way things were.

We were too busy living.

We made our own toys like kites, tops as well as bows and arrows fashioned from the sturdy wood of wild bushes and cord, among others.

I look at the young ones now and, feel a sense of tragic loss on their behalf.

Modern times have robbed them of the wild carefree days of childhood. But I will not be tempted into painting an idyllic picture of an age long gone. Those were brutish times; there was running water but no electricity which privilege was confined to legal homes of brick and mortar.

Now I see squatter homes with TV antennaes, some even boasting satellite dishes.

The squatter huts in our colony were lit up by kerosene lamps and the only home entertainment came from a reddifusion set which also doubled up as an alarm clock that woke up the family punctually at six each morning.

Since we were kaki ayam (barefoot) most times, soles were open targets for rusty nails embedded in planks.

I'd howl in pain and limp into the house for my mother to drop her household chores to tend to my immediate need.

Her treatment was Zam Buk, a green balm with a soothing effect, a must for every household in those days, spread on a leaf from an herbal plant.

She placed the combination on the wound after cleaning it with warm water. It's a miracle I hadn't died from tetanus infection.

Also being barefoot most times of the day, worm infection became common as it was inevitable.

The remedy for that were two orange coloured furry Auyervedic (an ancient Indian system of holistic medicine) pills stuck into pisang emas (banana) and a plain rice porridge diet for the rest of the day.

The pills infused the fruit with such a bitter taste that for weeks afterwards the very sight of the bananas would trigger a spasm in me to throw up.

The end result of the treatment was rather dramatic, the details of which, be warned, may prove to be too much for weak stomachs.

As we were too young for the outhouse, we did our business squatting over a small drain, yakking away six to a dozen while expelling tight whitish round balls all wriggly and waving about.

I could never get used to that awful sight.

To think that those creatures were having a party inside gave me the shudders.

The least I can say about present times is that my children have been spared such debilitating infections. A horror list of other diseases common in those days would be too long for this occasion. However, some of them like tuberculosis and a more virulent form of malaria are reportedly making a strong come back.

Communist insurgency

After I started schooling there were times when the bus would not put in an appearance because of some festival or other where better money was to be made through chartering.

The first time it happened I must've panicked of course. I don't know where I drew the courage from but hoofed the seven miles from the Batu Road English School, which still exists as Sek. Men. Batu Road along Jalan Raja Laut, to Ang Seng.

I wouldn't dare contemplate repeating the feat now; much less expect it of my children who get driven to school. Why, we daren't even send our 11-year-old to the shops, just around 10 minutes walk away. That's how menacing life has become in modern urban living.

As all these daily details formed the mundane routine of those days; however the more exciting part was the communist insurgency which wracked pre-independence Malaya.

Practically every week there would be reports of ambushes and murders, burning of buses and derailment of trains.

And, often, in the distance we would hear the explosion of bombs from planes that had moments earlier droned over the squatter settlement.

It was a great relief; therefore, when the insurgency finally wound down years after the country gained independence.

Are we leading a better life now than before? I can't really say. The air was much cleaner, the rivers and streams were so clear then that one could see right to their bed of stone and sand.

Now even potable water has become an issue with filters a must when before drinking off the tap was normal.

Changes coming at dizzying speed and the world beating on our doors are also matters of deep concern.

Perhaps I'm suffering from future shock at the fact that my world is disintegrating faster than the mind's ability to absorb coupled with the fear at the shape of the future our children must face.

One can only pray that somehow the immense knowledge that children need to digest would be leavened by wisdom to help them navigate safely through a world caught in a swirl of violence like never before.