Yesterday (21st November) was World Television Day, and coincidentally, this month I chose TV for my blog! We all have a TV story of our own, and TV has told us so many stories. TV was the first place where we, as kids, had choices because we chose our favorite cartoon, channel, visuals, and sounds. We saw TV with parents, grandparents, friends, and family too, due to which we saw all types of content, and not what our algorithm wants to show us! Along with favorite shows, we had our favorite advertisements too, which made us unmute the sound and watch over and over again.
For almost 10 years, after coming home from school, I had a fixed TV time, which was from 3 pm to 4 pm. It used to be a race against time to change from uniform, grab some snacks, and switch on the TV sharp at 3. And then the next 1 hour was the best me-time from hoping to have one Doremon for myself, to never questioning why Nobita was always in class 5th, to believing that the time machine was in a drawer, to hoping to be intelligent like Kiteretsu, borrowing some audacity from Shinchan, to having a platypus Perry as a pet like Phineas and Ferb, and having the ladoos of Chota Bheem. This will be a never-ending list. It was quite simple: a few channels, a few cartoons, and the freedom to watch anything without any preconceived notions of racism, body shaming, nationalism, so on and so forth!
Over time, along with cartoons, some daily soap operas also joined in; they felt like a long novel, with every episode unfolding the story, one day at a time, but the time was fixed. If the telecast time was missed, there was no other way than to guess what would have happened. Repeat telecasts used to be in the afternoons, which were spent in school. So watching the serial at the telecast time was the only option. The best part was discussing the serial plots and guessing where the story would go with friends in school. It was such a creatively stimulating time pass in lunch breaks. Otherwise, one or two serials were watched, but when grandparents came over or we went to their place, then it was like a serial festival (like a film festival), one serial after another, from 7 to 10 pm, and all channels. It is such a talent to watch two serials at a time, but grandparents are multitaskers in their own right. I still watch some serials daily, but now there is no need to watch at the telecast time; the flexibility of time provided by OTT has ended the exclusivity of the telecast!
This very TV was our Spotify before Spotify. From 9xm, B4U, MTV music, etc, we switched channels to listen to our favorite songs. It used to be a constant changing of music channels to catch up on the songs. Along with audio, we knew and saw all the videos too. Now we only listen, watching videos seems to have lost the frequency it had back in the day.
When there was no algorithm that decided my watchlist, I had a buffet of shows to watch. From travelling around the world with Fox Traveller, to watching a trio handle sweet tables at birthday parties in ‘Sugar Stars’, particularly this show introduced me to the concept of sweet tables and their importance in the West. There was a show called ‘Cousins Undercover’, where a pair of cousins did a home makeover within weeks for people serving the society, and then there was a show called, “Who Lives Here”, where 5 strangers were taken around each other’s house and they had to guess who lives in which house, and the one who guessed it all right was awarded with a cash prize.
But now TV, my long-lost friend, sits alone on the wall, waiting to be switched on. Earlier, we sat in front of it and watched it with all our concentration; now it hopes to bring us back in front of it and our concentration, both difficult to have in this time and age. The flexibility of OTT has led to its decline; today, everyone watches their own content on their phones, and TV has become a passive furniture. There is no fight for the remote, a device we could once operate without looking, now sits with dust in some drawer! But I am extremely thankful to TV for helping me build the patience to watch a 20-minute serial in 30 minutes, for being there with me when I was all alone at home, the memories, the stories, the characters, and for the variety of content that it offered!
Ps: Tell me your favourite cartoon/serial/show in the comment section.
Happy Reading,
-सिddhi Bhosale
My earliest memory of news channels was at age 7, announcing to my parents as each minute passed in the morning hurry-burry to get ready for school/work, coz I was ignorant of the analogue clocks on the walls.
ReplyDeleteTo the phase of having business news channels running in the background, to not feel empty in a silent house during WFH. The sofas & dining tables used to be arranged in a way to ensure each occupant had an unobstructed view of the action.
My mother & I had a gap of 30 minutes between our respective arrival at home, from school. That half an hour had HIMYM scheduled, with MTV/VH1/9XM during ad breaks, without her knowing.
As display technology improved from CRT to LCD to, now LED, the time spent reduced drastically as the humble idiot box became a smart TV. The freedom of choice plus the ludicrous variety fighting for our attention has rid us of the interest we once had.
This was a lovely blog post that evoked so much nostalgia over how the entire family used to sit close & watch on one screen, instead of each screen.
Thank you so much!! Your TV story is really captivating!!
DeleteThe blog made me nostalgic. Every line of the blog touched my heart and made me relive those memories again.
ReplyDeleteThank you for creating something so emotional. Truly a wonderful blog!
Thank you!!
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