Durdarshan indeed!

The reality contests, from the most local to the world wide, for all such and other very many tidbits, thy name is the iconic, Dear Doordarshan!

It is that time of the year yet again. Yes, it is the tine to celebrate the television as it is the television day. The millennials may not know nor understand why.  They have grown up in an era when the ubiquitous mobile has gobbled up the t.v. as well. The Covid years, moreover, added to the OTT effect. Binge watching is better on the mobile, anyways.

For all the earlier generations, the t.v. was central to existence so much so that the  very "modern" households would have a television set each for every bedroom!

The television, initially black and white was not this easily available. Till the mid-80's, very few urban households had acquired their own television sets. Sharing was common. To watch important sports events, films every Sunday, there used to be a line-up at the place of the only television set owner in the lane.

About the t.v. watching, too, there were many strict rules. No television set, however attractive, would decorate the family drawing room of most families till the youngest in the family completed his/her twelfth!

The news anchors were as influential as the film stars then. There used to be great serials then. Buniyad, Mahabharat (from its special introductory music onwards), and so on. Ramayana and Hum Log stars and characters, as of other serials, were more like family friends. The film based t.v. programmes such as "Chitrahaar" were immensely popular.

The advent of the multi-channel t.v. in the late eighties changed the very paradigm.  Thus entered in the t.v. business in a huge way the advertisers whose preferences were not necessarily artistic. The t.v. and watching it thus changed forever!

Thus began the debate if the t.v. was an idiot box that vitiated the tastes of the audience. Well, now the technology and the boldness of the content have gone so far that such debates hardly matter any more. 

Even then, in semi-urban third tier cities and in villages, the television continues  to entertain a lot, educate a little,  all along enriching lives a bit.  Long live the television!

Pratima@ The idiot box was much better any day any time than the  contemporaneous "kar lo duniya mutthi me" mobile!