As I have time and again informed
in this blog, I tend to classify generations based on the media one grew up with. My mother
grew up in the age of Radio. I also remember the Radio faintly. It was the only
source of entertainment at home until I was 8 years old. I still remember the baritone of the news
reader Saroj Narayanaswamy in the All
India Radio with distinct punctuations. Those days the radio jockeys of the day were
the superstars. My hook to the radio was the sports section of the news
bulletin. Especially when India was on at Cricket tour in countries like
England and West Indies, the matches would mostly end-up in night . The
newspaper next day would obviously not carry the latest update. So I used to rely on the radio with bated
breathe to know the result. On my summer trips to my Grandfather’s village , the
radio box (one with the vaccum tubes) held a center stage in the hall. On Sundays,
the All India Radio used to relay the voicecast of the Tamil films. My aunts
and uncles , used to sit in a circle surrounding the Radio box hearing it out with pin drop
silence. In addition the dramas produced by the AIR were also pretty popular. I
also liked the advertisements that the Radios ran…while the ads if relayed
today, might sound amateurish, it stuck to my mind…what else does an advertiser
want!
And then the villain came ! Enter…..
the Television – the Idiot Box and father/mother of all modern day distractions…In
1984, when the Los Angeles Olympics happened
, my father thought it was the most opportune moment and bought the TV…albeit a colour
one . It came with 8 channels although all we had was just one TV Channel ,the Doordarshan. There was
a television antenna , an aluminum reception device that was required. We watched
in awe the excerpts of the Los Angeles Olympics …the biggest controversy was “Did
Zola Budd trip Mary Decker intentionally in the 3000 m race? “ . Also we were amazed to see the Los Angeles
city itself during the marathon race, the criss-cross of the roads zoomed from
a top angle of the camera on a Helicopter tracking the runners. Next time
I went to visit grandfather, the television had sidelined the radio in villages
as well. Only that the antenna was like
perched on a pole of over 12 ft to capture the disturbance free signal. Whenever
the TV images reduced in clarity , one of my uncle used to run to the house-top
to turn the antenna pole until the signal clarity emerged.
The Television grew in complexity
from then on…Satellite television emerged …there were a plethora of TV channels
to choose upon…Non-stop news Channels, Soap Operas with melodrama slugfest ,
Non-stop Sports channels,Non-stop music….the problem I have these days is the “Non-stop”ness. Suddenly, the once in a week song-show became
24-hour ….once in a week film telecast became 24-hour … the suspense , the wait
, the rarity I feel is lost…and as I
felt , I lost out on the edge-of-seat wait to hear about the result of the
cricket match from the distant land.
Do you feel that way too? Or is
this all trivial nostalgia that is an indication of my ageing?
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