The Good Old Days!

Its just Tuesday and I am already exhausted. Two more days before my beloved Friday ushers in a wonderful Saturday. The ride back home from office is incredibly bone rattling thanks to the extended rains and the inferior quality of the roads which messed them up completely. And the dust is choking me. So while my spine bears the brunt of the pothole riddled road, my nose is already watery with all the dust and the vehicle fumes. 

I reach home, throw my office bag away, get licked by Bruno (my pet lab), knock my shoes off and sit on the chair with feet on the table. My wife and mother greet me with a smile that makes my mood slightly better. My wife is peeling off the potatoes while mom goes off to make me tea. The TV is on. The channel is Asianet -a Malayalam channel. A commercial is showing Mammootty (a Malayalee actor) promoting branded dhotis (called Mund in Malayalam). I pick up the remote to change the channel when my mother calls out from the kitchen;

“Don’t change the channel. I am watching ‘Amma’.”

The first thought on my mind is ‘how the hell did she know that I was going to change the channel?’. Then a groan escapes my mouth. I had the misfortune of watching a couple of scenes of the above mentioned serial. Its about an 8-9 year old girl and the trials and tribulations she goes through. That’s her. 

Her character in the serial could give Mother Teresa a run for her money. Another girl not more than 12 plays the nemesis to the 8-9 year old Mother Teresa. And that's her.

All the characters in the show are either crying their eyes out or scheming the downfall of the 8-9 year old Mother Teresa. Its a sob fest. The show has been running since forever. Its probably airing its 1200^th episode now. And my mother, after giving me the tea, proceeds to watch the show as the two girls on it ham their way to eternal glory. They are irritating to the core. Probably worse than Aditya Narayan’s singing when he was young (Remember, yaaro mere pass to aao, meri mushkil door bhagao….?).

Most of the Malayalam serials are sob fests and equally pathetic. One serial ad goes ‘this woman has misfortune as a sibling…”. And the screen shows 20 odd characters sobbing for God knows what reason. Going by the amount of tears these characters shed, Kerala has to be the unhappiest state in the country. But its not just Kerala.

TV sucks nowadays. So many goddamn channels and so many goddamn crappy shows. I am not even going to mention the daily soaps. Quality has been sacrificed for higher TRPs. Someone asked me if I followed ‘Big Boss’ which was celebrating the 7^th year of its success. “I have a life” was my only plausible reply.

The most disgusting evolution/degradation has been that of the NEWS channels. The premise of 'masalafication' of NEWS channels is inexcusable. So I turn on this popular news channel one day. For a very good part of the morning I have to witness a scary guy in black clothes giving various tips to please ‘Shani’. That's him.

An hour later, another channel airs a program called ‘Saas Bahu aur Saazish’. Another one airs a similar program called ‘Saas Bahu aur Betiya’. And what irritates the crap out of me is the dramatic representation of alleged crimes, incidents and accidents.

The biggest let down has been MTV. A channel which represented the freedom and rebellious spirit of youth is reduced to showing songs like ‘Anarkali disco chali’. And not to mention the numerous serials and reality shows being aired on it. It’s a MUSIC channel for God’s sake.

I remember the first time cable made its way into my house. It was October 1992. Zee TV had just been launched. And unlike the 24 hour channels today, back then the programs began from 7 in the evening. So we waited anxiously as we stared at the big ‘Z’ on the screen. There were a handful of channels back then.

One of them was ATN – a music channel. It used to play the same old Nadeem Shravan kind of songs day in and day out. But the monotony was broken by the movie it played in the afternoon. 9 times out of 10 they were off mithun. But it was fun nevertheless.And not to mention the countless clippings of an invisible Prabhudeva dancing to 'mukkalla mukkabla...laila...'

And then there was Star TV. Back then some of the best series were aired on it. It was my first brush with the western culture. So programs like Remington Steele (which featured Pierce Brosnan who was without doubt the best looking guy in the world), The Wonder Years, Doogie Howser MD, MASH, The Crystal Maze, Batman, Manimal, Dracula and not to mention Baywatch kept me hooked to the idiot box.

Be it the title track ‘some people stand in the darkness…’, the bikini babes, surfing, David Hasselhoff running on the beach, the hot Yasmeen Bleeth or the amazing Pamela Anderson as CJ Parker, Baywatch played a great role in my growing up years. The show made ‘lifeguards’ sexy. The fact that the show was banned in my house added to the allure.

I even tried my hand at dailies like Santa Barbara and The Bold And the Beautiful. Then there was Riviera which was my earliest encounter with erotica on TV.

MTV was another channel that was banned for us. The elders and the moral police saw MTV as an attempt by the western world to poison minds of the youth in the country. And that was all the more reason for us to watch the channel. MTV introduced me to the world of rock, pop, reggae, rap and heavy metal genres of music. MTV introduced me to Madonna, Michael Jackson, Brian Adams, Aerosmith, Bon Jovie, Shaggy, Snow, MC Hammer, Diana King, George Michael, U2, Khaled and many more.

Closer home one of the first programs I remember was 'Tara' featuring Navneet Nishaan. And Amita Nangia. I had a huge crush on her. And she was probably the reason I watched the show that went on and on. That's her.

Then there was Campus, Banegi Apni Baat (which had Irfan Khan in it), Saap Seedi, Kab Kyon Kahan, Aahat, Just Mohabbat, Zamana Badal Gaya Hai, Bournvita Quiz Contest, Tol Mol Ke Bol, Ek Minute, Commander, Wheel of Fortune, Wah Kya Scene Hai, Filmi Chakkar, Philips Top Ten, Antakshri and so many more.

I still believe that Aahat was a very good horror show back then. There was also another show called Sannata which aired only a few episodes before being pulled off the air. It was good too. And then there was Zee Horror Show. The haunting title music and the sight of Archana Puran Singh’s laughing demonic head lying on a plate scared the shit out of me. I never watched the show again. She no longer remained the stunner from the movie Jalwa. That's her by the way.

Then there were contests. So many of them. The makers asked some question at the end of the show and we were supposed to send the answer on a postcard. Perhaps the mid 90s was the golden era for the postal department before mobile technology touched Indian shores. I too would send the postcards religiously, hoping for a reply or winning a contest, or just to see my name being flashed on the TV. The closest I came to achieving my moment of fame was when kab Kyu Kahan -a quiz contest hosted by Tara Deshpande (another one of my many television crushes) was on air. That's her.

Every week I would send postcards requesting to participate on the show. And one day I received a reply. I got a postcard asking me to visit the UTV studio in Mumbai for an audition. I was over the moon. In my head I was already on TV. So one fine morning dad took me and my brother to the UTV studio in Mumbai. It was an atmosphere like I had never seen. There was so much activity going on. Nobody noticed us as we walked around. Infact there was a live recording of the show in progress as we waited. My heartbeats rose as I craned my next to catch a glimpse of Tara Deshpande. But in vain.We were greeted by a pretty lady who took us to her cabin. She was very nice to me and offered candies.

"Ok Sunil" she said. “I am going to ask both of you some GK questions. I need to see if both of you are fit to appear on the show.”

And then she proceeded to ask us around 20 odd questions; most of them which my brother and I answered with ease. I remember answering Colombia when asked for the capital of Sri Lanka. And Menaka Gandhi to the question ‘which member of the Nehru family is associated with animal welfare?’.

And then the audition was over. She smiled brightly again and promised to inform me if we had made it to the show. We hadn’t. But her promise gave me hope. I waited and waited. And I never got a reply. When exactly I lost hope, I do not remember. But that one visit was perhaps the best day of my life. That postcard asking me to visit Mumbai stayed with me as a memento for a long time. Again when it got destroyed I do not recollect. It was perhaps one of those moments when you come across a memorabilia, stare at it for a moment, take a deep breath and destroy it. 

As years went by I realized that hoping to be on TV was a long shot. So when my folks urged me to send that sms to appear on KBC I took refuge in statistics which gave me a negligible chance of appearing on TV. 

Alas, times and television have changed. SMS has replaced the postcard. There are hardly any good shows on TV. And one can't blame the makers of the shows. They thrive because their shows have takers. Deprive them of their audience and we might just have the good old television days back. But I am being too optimistic. Its a long shot.

However, on the brighter side, there so many good websites which give me access to the wonderful shows of the old. God bless these website developers for maintaining some sanity in the world. I think I am going to start with The Wonder Years. Or MASH perhaps. Talk about being spoiled for choices.