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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
In his memoir 1980s: The Days of Innocence, Durgesh Pimparkar shares his early years in a small Indian village in the titular decade, where curiosity about objects and surroundings shaped his understanding of the world. He explains how his father changed his birth date for the school admission and how classroom experiences introduced him to new social structures and family concepts. He describes learning arithmetic from his grandfather and creating a multiplication method to escape punishment from a strict teacher. He talks about incidents of correction, early awareness of gender boundaries, and his friendship with a girl named Rohini. The author describes lessons about moral perception and power in stories, and an innocent childhood misunderstanding of adult behavior whose meaning he only fully understood years later.
Durgesh Pimparkar's 1980s: The Days of Innocence is written in slice-of-life vignettes, and the author does well in digging into his recollections of childhood in rural India, which he shares with heart and gentle humor. I enjoyed reading his recreations of village life, but what made me smile the most is that, when all is said and done, both of our 1980s upbringings had a lot in common: schoolyard antics, mischievous pranks, and small triumphs, each of which felt universal. His prank involving a flour mill sign is the standout, and he tells us the story with the same quiet wit he uses throughout, leaning into a keen observation of human nature. Overall, Pimparkar's remembrances of life through the clear eyes of a child, and his inevitable growth into awareness, are well-told, honest, and enjoyable.
