Recently I removed the dust jacket off my TeeVee , to watch the third season of Indian Idol (yes, we idle indians watch Indian Idol) .
Guilty of not cheering for a fellow Hyderabadi in Season2 (blame entirely on my Belgium trip) ,I ensure that I try to remember to watch it this time(alas! I forget to most of the days) .
The highlight of the episode I’d watched last Friday was unfortunately not from Indian Idol but from where I’d sauntered off during the break - ‘Koffee with Karan with Kekta Kapoor’ (all the Ks only added to more disgust than the usual) I’d watched just 2 mins of the show and it was even more intolerable than all her 'Saas-Bahu' sagas put together – and so here is the highlight WTF comment by her ‘I make serials for the middleclass housewives and not for the upper strata of society which needs something more creative!’ ; I mean, she might as well say ‘I’m not creative enough!’ and all that ‘I’m going to marry you Ekta’ by Karan J made me run to the washroom (to puke of course!) .
Suddenly I see the room around me revolving and I’m transported to the -good old didi (our pet name for doordarshan) of the ‘80s and my mom rationing my television time where I could watch only 1 hour of ‘Fauji’ and 1 hour of ‘The world this week’(time not enough to drool over ‘I say chaps’ guy and Pranoy Roy).
Perhaps television in ‘80s came with a disclaimer -‘Viewing is injurious to children’s health’ but recently must have been modified to ‘Viewing is injurious to health’ .
So what went wrong? From 1 channel to 101 channels and everything churns out the same junk as if they wouldn’t want to miss the prize for the world’s trashiest sit-coms.
I am not asking for ‘Friends’ or ‘Seinfeld’ , atleast give us something like good old DD– ‘Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi’ , ‘ Nukkad’ , ‘Ados Pados’, ‘Mungherilal ke sapney’, ‘Mr.Yogi’ , ‘Karamchand’ , ‘Chunauti’, ‘Subah’ , ‘ Choti Badi Baaten’ , ‘Rajini’, ‘Vikram aur Bettal, Babaji ka Baiscope,’Ek Do teen char’, Indradhanush , ‘Neev’, ‘Circus’ , ‘ Udaan’
(Diversion1: I am avoiding Hum Log, Buniyaad, Khandhaan for the obvious reasons that I never watched them but I know for sure they were way ahead of the K-serials)
If the lack of creativity concerns you, why not adapt books into serials – ‘Kachi Dhoop’ was based on ‘Little Women’, ‘Trishna’ was ‘Pride an’d Prejudice’ and ‘Byomkesh Bakshi’ which was based on a fictional Bengali detective and of course the famous R.K.Narayan’s ‘Malgudi Days’ (diversion2: recently I heard someone using the famous Malgudi days title track as a cell phone ringtone and I wished if the current channels revived the serial as well).
And does anyone remember this immensely cute animation called ‘Ek anek’?
For those who do, take a look at this and re-live your childhood memories…
