The years have changed, and so has the Indian television. This article tries to display a contrast in the Indian television, then and now.
Coming home, tired, after a hard long day, the first thing we do is to switch on the television, change and freshen up, come and squat on the sofa getting refueled by some cold coffee on one side and a pizza on the other to catch up with the latest happenings around the world.
Surfing through the 180 channels, we find a glimpse of Hrithik and Barbara’s Kites or the T20. We stop there and watch it with an open mouth as if it’s the first time we’ve gotten a chance to see it all.
Be it Sania-Shoib’s wedding or the Tharoor-Modi’s story, we juggle to absorb every detail to gain this superficial general knowledge so that we won’t be left behind in the gossip sessions at lunch time. Be it Dance India Dance or for that matter Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, we are eager to cover them all at the same time, torturing the remote with quick-view.
Come weekends and it is a shower of movies. One channel showcases Jab We Met, another has Paa and the yet another, Titanic. As if this confusion is not enough, there is “breaking news” in each news channel to grab the attention of viewers.
Gone are the days when the antenna had to be set up to be able to watch television and that too in black and white, now its all about colour and flatscreens. With the advent of colour TV’s came The Discovery of India, Malgudi Days, and Chirahaar. These are some of the all-time favourites of the time.
In the mornings, you would find a UGC Programme where children were taught Mathematics and Social Studies and the nights were full of Alif Laila. Sundays were reserved for Rangoli and Ramayan.
Then Zee invaded the kingdom with Dekh bhai Dekh and TuTu-Main Main. Come home and you would find the Complan boy or the washing powder Nirma ad going on. The next in the line was Sony, when people even skipped their outings for Boogie-Woogie.
Later the competition was between Star-Plus with Kyunkii, Kasautii and Sony with Kkusum even though they were the products of the same production.
The journey does not end here, the compitition is still on to get highest TRP’s and viewership. The are still many twists in television but we manage to engage ourselves in it.
We are wise enough to choose anything new and sensible. That’s the saga of Indian television.