Doordarshan !!

Yesterday, sharp at 10 pm, all of us glued in front of the TV. It was not a movie, not a match but a serial. Yes, even I was surprised to the extent of my jaws falling apart. And all the credit goes to anu’s mausi ji. She saw that serial just for 1 day with us, told us the story in details and we were hooked to the series to know what happened next!!!

With changing times, even our very own idiot box has changed a lot. Earlier there used to be just one channel and we used to remember even the advertisements’ by-heart. Now there are so many channels that all our time is spent in channel surfing and we don’t even remember what we watched in the last half-and-hour.

Even today when we discuss about TV serials, we remember and cherish the good old DD serials only. We wonder how B.R.Chopra’s Mahabharata and Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana had increased the sale of TVs exponentially. Roads and shops used to be empty on Sunday as soon as the clock struck 9. People of all age groups used to watch these epics with the same emotions and sincerity. Whatever I know of these epics, is mainly because of these serials. I wonder how much the next generation would know of these epics in absence of such serials. It’s not that these epics have not been telecasted after that, but even the comparison of B.R.Chopra’s Mahabharata and Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana with today’s serials are an insult to the veteran directors.

And how can we forget our in-house James Bond, Vyomkesh Bakshi. All of us used to solve the cases with the same inquisitiveness as Vyomkesh and were awed by his intelligence and logical thinking. The best part of those times were that it did not matter where the tv remote was because there was no need for changing channels for the entire stretch. Now we fight over changing channels more than watching the programs.

I remember how I used to rush from my school to see the soap ‘Yug’. We didn’t even miss the title track which I still remember with tune ‘Yug badla badla Hindustan…..’. Now if ever we watch some program, we just see the scenes in which some important part of the story is telecasted, forget about title tracks and it wont even matter if while changing channels we miss 15 mins of a 30 min soap.

Then there were Fauji (which gave us our King Khan), Shanti, Jungle Book, Malgudi Days and many others. The thought of these serials still bring a smile on our faces unlike those of today.

And all this I wrote just on the thought that I would have to live without tv for the next few months. Even if those good old serials are not there, it helps you kill time without worrying about work, relations and daily chores.