What was going on when I was born?

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1984 International Masses of Indians fled Bhopal after an announcement that the Union Carbide plant there would be started up again Sunday to neutralize what remains of a toxic chemical that leaked Dec. 3 and killed at least 2,000 people. By the tens of thousands and using any vehicle available, the residents left, abandoning jobs and homes, crippling many services and activities. (Page A1, Column 1.) Masses of Ethiopians were carried from the famine-stricken northern areas to more fertile lands in the west and south. An armada of buses, trucks and Soviet helicopters and troop transport planes is carrying tens of thousands of hungry, destitute peasants at the start of a huge resettlement program. (A12:3-6.)

Game boards hang on the walls and whimsical objects of tin are on view in two shows that open Friday and run through March 3 at the Museum of American Folk Art, 125 West 55th Street. The game boards - more than 100 painted with dazzling colors - were handmade, mostly in the 19th century, in the United States or Canada. There's a parcheesi board with a painting of the Vermont craftsman's own home, trompe l'oeil paintings and a ''Trip Around the World'' game whose decorations include a mermaid, a sea serpent and a dungeon. The tin show consists of 19th- century gifts for 10th wedding anniversaries - some 50 lighthearted shapes, including a witch's hat, a huge pocket watch, a two-foot-tall saltshaker and a life-size ladder-back chair. Admission: $2 ($1 for students and over- 65's). Information: 581-2474. HOLIDAY ORIGAMI With deft hands, Sakiko Mitsukuri folds paper into frogs, elephants, birds, flowers, boxes and fanciful objects - the Japanese art of origami. Mindful that the art could be useful in the holiday season for gift wrapping and tree decorating, she will demonstrate origami and teach it to visitors tonight at 8 at the Rye (N.Y.) Art Center, 240 Boston Post Road (about 30 minutes from Manhattan). Admission is $7. Reservations and directions: (914) 967-0700.

A senior Administration official said this evening that President Reagan has indicated he will accept only limited savings in the military budget. This tentative decision, backing the position of Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, means that cutbacks in previously proposed military spending will fall far short of the $58 billion over three years that was recommended by Mr. Reagan's budget working group. Unless the President proposes further cuts in domestic spending, he will also fall short of his goal of reducing the deficit, now running more than $200 billion a year, to $100 billion in 1988. 'Tantamount to' Final Decision The official, who requested anonymity, said no final word had come from Mr. Reagan. But the President's reaction in a meeting Wednesday with Secretary Weinberger and the budget working group, he said, ''is tantamount to'' a final decision.

Early Christmas shoppers helped push retail sales up 1.8 percent in November for the sharpest gain in seven months, the Government reported today. The Reagan Administration called it a ''cheerful start'' for the Christmas selling season. Some private economists saw the gain as a signal that the economy is finally rebounding from its prolonged summer slump. The Commerce Department said retail sales, after adjustment for seasonal variations, rose to a record $110.3 billion in November. Clothing stores and department stores both registered big increases.

Just what is Sir James Goldsmith, the secretive British millionaire, up to now? A few months ago, the 51-year-old maverick tried and failed to buy Continental Group Inc., the old Continental Can Company, for $2.5 billion. Before that, he had sought to buy into the St. Regis Corporation in a big way, but St. Regis proved coldly unreceptive. In neither instance was Sir James entirely disappointed. In the St. Regis episode, the group he headed accepted a $50 million profit for its 9 percent of the company's shares. His stake in Continental yielded an estimated $35 million profit when he bowed out after losing to Peter Kiewit Sons Inc. and David H. Murdock, the West Coast millionaire.

Over the next two years, according to a new Federal estimate, 1.4 million Americans will be treated in doctors' offices, or not at all, for medical problems that until now would have meant admission to a hospital. That is one result expected from a new Federal program to control Medicare expenses. And many delegates to a national medical convention here this week said in speeches and interviews that they found the prospect troubling, even though many agreed that, in theory, the number of hospital admissions could be reduced. While many surgical procedures, such as biopsies and cataract operations, are now performed in doctors' offices in certain areas of the country, the new Federal rules would mean the procedures would be performed outside hospitals much more often. One concern among many of the doctors attending the annual convention of the American Medical Peer Review Association is that no one will monitor the quality of care delivered in offices. In addition, doctors here asked in conversations and speeches whether it was ''compassionate medicine'' to perform more breast biopsies, plastic surgery, cataract operations and other procedures in their offices, even if it saved money.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1984 Economy Retail sales rose 1.8 percent in November, pushed up by early Christmas shopping, the Commerce Department reported. The increase, to a seasonally adjusted record $110.3 billion, came after a lackluster 0.1 percent increase in October. Analysts said the report indicated that the economy was coming out of a summer slump as consumers began to spend again. (Page D1.) The nation's money supply plunged $7.1 billion in the week ended Dec. 3, the Federal Reserve said. It was a much larger decline than expected, and the news helped keep alive speculation that the Fed might encourage lower interest rates in order to stimulate the economy. Yields of Treasury notes and bonds rose modestly. Short-term interest rates rose slightly. (D1.)

A picture caption in Metropolitan Report on Wednesday with an article about a proposal to reduce exemptions from jury service in New York misidentified a Housing Court judge. He is Antonio Brandveen.

President Reagan is expected to announce next week that the United States has formally decided to leave Unesco, Administration officials said today. Mr. Reagan's reported decision to quit the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization will come nearly one year after Secretary of State George P. Shultz announced that the United States would withdraw at the end of 1984 unless the organization made substantive changes. Gregory J. Newell, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, said today: ''The final decision has not yet been made, although the likelihood of the United States reversing the decision of last December is quite unlikely, given the fact that there has been little or no significant or concrete improvement in Unesco.

A far-reaching package of bills to reshape Japan's telecommunications industry cleared a key parliamentary committee tonight, guaranteeing its evenutal passage by the full Parliament. The final passage of the bills, expected next week, will end the 32-year monopoly of the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Company, privatizing the Government-owned telephone company and allowing competition for telecommunications services and equipment. One-half to two-thirds of N.T.T.'s stock is to be gradually sold to the public - although ownership will be limited to Japanese citizens. The move is part of an international trend to deregulate telecommunications and put Government-owned operations into the hands of the private sector. Earlier this month the British Government transferred just over 50 percent of British Telecom to private hands in a public offering that was heavily oversubscribed. Unlike Japan's plans, however, some British Telecom shares were made available for foreign buyers.

The blows that killed 18-year-old Jonny Habib in a video arcade last January left his mother, too, a murder victim. ''I wanted to die,'' said Suzanne Habib. ''I wanted to go to Jonny. I felt Jonny was calling me. He wouldn't rest until I got there.'' Mrs. Habib said she no longer felt like killing herself, but she said she had lost her own fear of death and was ready to die. ''I don't care anymore,'' she said. A year after the slaying, reliving her pain through the trial of one of her son's attackers, her loss is still everywhere with her. In the supermarket she sees the glazed doughnuts and onion rings Jonny liked to nibble. The slightest pathos on television can make her start sobbing, and slights by strangers can enrage her.

Because of an editing error, an article in Metropolitan Report last Friday about a plan to build eight large incinerators in New York City misreported the position of the Staten Island Borough President, Ralph J. Lamberti. He has not objected to any site proposed for an incinerator.