A Different Flavour.........

The skies were the darkest grey I had seen all monsoon this year,had been the whole day.Ever since i had woken up today,the skies had been threatening to play spoilsport on my afternoon.And just as the clock struck 1:30 and I was about to go out,the skies broke in a heavy downpour.So I was stuck,stuck for the rest of the day with nothing to do,nowhere to go.I stared out from my windows for a few moments,blankly,vaguely,at the steady drizzle comming down.No,it would be mere foolery to venture out in this weather.So,with nothing better to do,I switched on my television set.But there are certain days when nothing seems to go right for you,and today was one of them.The remote had run out of battery,and there was no spare battery in the entire house.And so there was I,stuck indoors on a rainy day,with a television set in which,only one channel was available.And in a vile conspiracy,that one channel that I was stuck with was Doordarshan.Talk of bad luck!But a few minutes of Doordarshan never fails to do that one thing-stir those childhood memories,something it had been such an integral part of.And as those lost memories came flooding back,I switched of my television,exclaiming to myself,'what do i have to watch on television anyways?'.

Its true.Doordarshan never fails to revive those memories of childhood.The satellite channels had not yet made their foray into our lives,Sas Bahus were as alien to us as fishes are to snow laden mountain tops and a mere two or three channels were available to us.And yet,we never complained.Compare this with today's 'wish karo dish karo' age where we so frequently find ourselves complaining that there is absolutely nothing to watch on television.And,yet,in those holocene days of our lives,a mere three channels were sufficient to satiate our thirst for entertainment.Waking up to 'jungle jungle pata chala hai' on weekends followed by Alice In Wonderland,life had seemed easy and innocent.On the nights,having dinner,with our eyes firmly fixed on our television sets,watching Chitrahaar had almost become a part of our daily routines.And it was impossible to imagine holidays without Doordarshan.Its hard to find a child in Bengal,of my age,who didn't watch Chhuti Chhuti.That one programme so lighted up our days and made those lousy afternoons so much more bearable.I can still remember that song 'bajlo chhutir ghonta',a song that signalled the end to our long wait all morning for the clock to strike 12 noon and Chhuti Chhuti to begin.Here was my first tryst with Hollywood and spider man,and my first watch of that one movie that was so much an essential and integral part of any Bengali child's growing up,'Goopi Gayen Bagha Bayen'.

Those years are long gone,and nothing can possibly turn back the clocks,and gone with it is our beloved Doordarshan.Is it us that has changed,or is it Doordarshans quality that has undergone such a steady and fast decline.One thing however remains certain,that however much we might cringe at the mere sight of Doordarshan,our childhoods would have been incomplete but for its presence.For in the soft boards of our intensely vulnerable and pregnable childhood,Doordarshan has made a permanent place.

Hope I didn't bore you guys with these meaningless consternations,for whats gone is gone,but sometimes,its necessary to look at life in retrospective.