Thursday, August 11, 2011

Jai Ho Doordarshan

Those were the days when TV watching was celebrated. I can reminisce about those times very fondly. I stumbled upon this website which took me back in time and even after coming back the sweet memories are still lingering. For all those DD fans out there this one is sure to bring back the memories. You'll find everything
about DD here commercials, serials and what not. Thanks a ton for those of you, who are maintaining the site.  http://ddnational.blogspot.com/

I still remember vividly. My first brush with TV happened on an unfortunate day of 30th Oct 1984. Mrs Indira Gandhi was shot and children were let off from schools. I didn't know who Indira Gandhi was and I must say I was happy. There was excitement in the air about the live telecast of the proceedings. My brother
who is 10 years elder to me and his friends were planning to go 3 colonies away to watch television in a doctors house who was treating my mother. I happily and silently tagged along. There was already huge crowd, all unknown faces. With my brother's lobbying we could get in after Maneuvering through the crowd. My expectation was to see Mrs Gandhi being shot but all I could see was only people and glimpse of demised PM. I was disappointed.

Within a years time we bought a brand new TV. We were the first in our locality to buy a TV. Dynora black and white. Initially it took some time to get a hang of what’s going on. We would gather before the telecast time and watch from the National DD signature

http://ddnational.blogspot.com/search/label/DD%20National%20Signature

Most of the times we ended up watching all the boring programmes. News was the first thing we were hooked on to, then we caught up with 9PM serials. From then on the pattern of TV watching kept changing based on the programmes aired, nevertheless we were hooked.

Sunday’s were truly exciting times and lived upto the expectation of a  holiday. Now it’s cliche to say but still it is Ramayan which caught the imagination of the masses. Started witnessing the crowds that I mentioned earlier in our house itself . The hall which could accommodate 20 people would be filled by 40 people and
we kids used to sit lap on lap in a window opposite to the TV. That was our balcony seat. More than Ramayan it was the anticipation of watching and the congregation that excited me. The scene would be similar for Vikram-bethal followed by  Sunday evening Hindi movie.

After Ramayan our kid gang was eager to watch He-man, Mickey mouse, Duck tales, Ek do teen char, spiderman, Indradhanush. No other program series has brought out the feeling of patriotism in me than Param vir chakra till now. We kids were amazed by the valour and sacrifice shown by these great soldiers. After watching we kids used go out and enact the war and shooting stuff. Used to be such fun. Thanks to Chetan and Ketan Anand for this brilliant one. Don’t want to say anything about the theme song. Just listen..

http://ddnational.blogspot.com/search/label/Param%20Vir%20Chakra

Watching news for hearing impaired was fun and we used imitate the lady. I also liked the stone boy theme. Not to mention Mahabharat, Malgudi days, Dada dadi ki kahaniyan , Nukkad, Yeh jo hai Zindagi and many many more...

Commercials were a huge hit with us. Cinkara, Dabur chaywanprash, Dinesh suitings, Digjam Rasna, Vicco, Vicks, Vimal  and many more. Kapil was a national favorite and palmolive ka jawab nahin is my personal favorite.  Repeating the catch lines was a favorite pass time.

Unlike todays glamourous and biased news presenters we had Salma sultana with only one expression for any news. Personalities like Narrotham Puri, Siddhartha Basu, Anuradha podwal, Shekhar Kapur, Arun Govil, Deepika, Dara Singh, Gavaskar, Puneet Issar, Master Manjunath were all household names

My grandmother was a true TV buff, she always tried to duplicate the cinema environment in our house. She used to fry sunflower seeds and salt them. For all prime time programs these were shared with any body who had patience to munch them while watching TV. In summers it was Musk melon and Water melon seeds. One
should see with how much patience she used to collect, clean and  dry them. Always house almost looked like a theatre after the crowd left. Occasionally it used be groundnuts. Rarely we used to serve rasna which in itself was a daunting task.

to be continued....

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