Telewatch

Kids these days have remarkably dextrous fingers and a very short attention span. I say this because, in a span of a minute, my cousin changes the channel on the tv more number of times than the costume changes a heroine undergoes in a tamil film song. It is almost impossible to watch anything on the tv while he has possession of the remote, unless you have the memory span of a goldfish. Sitting in front of the telly, he operates the remote with the same fervour he displays while operating his gamepad. With over 60 channels to choose from and an average timeslot of 2 seconds per channel, watching tv with him is a truly phantasmagoric experience.

When queried as to the reason behind his never ending channel flipflop, his constant refrain is "It's so boring. There's nothing interesting on any channel". After giving this statement of his some consideration, I am forced to acknowledge that there is a grain of truth in it. These days except for a few timeslots, during most other times the broadcasters dish out mediocre stuff. In fact television content has hit such an alltime low that kids are forced to watch soap operas along with the rest of the household due to lack of choice.

Speaking of choice, I am reminded of a channel whose very name even today triggers mass hysteria among the ascetic yogis meditating on the Himalayan slopes.......Doordarshan. During my preteen years before the introduction of satellite tv, the only option on the telly was the DD. When I was a kid, the first tv that we owned was a black and white Dyanora which had a screen size smaller than that of many PDAs available today. The concept of tv remote was unheard of. For changing channels we had to use a knob on the tv which looked like the one used on gas stoves. (We actually had to use a gas stove knob on the tv when the original was lost).

Not that we used the channel changer a lot. For starters the tv had provision for only 6 channels. And when the knob was twisted to any of the 6 possible positions we'd end up with the same channel everytime, DD. Wasn't that a marvellous piece of engineering or what! And when Doordarshan introduced DD Metro channel a few years later, our joy knew no bounds. Hurray! We can get to use the knob atlast.

Switching on the tv every day was a task as punctilious as the daily pooja. It was done only in the evenings on the stroke of six, always by the elders and only when every member of the household was seated in their respective positions. My mum began proceedings by turning the power knob on. Dyanora was always obsessed with knobs. Apart from the power and channel knobs, there was a knob for volume, a knob for contrast and a knob for tone, all on the right side of the screen. In fact the entire side panel of the tv looked like the control panel of a diesel locomotive.

When the power knob was turned on, we had to wait for approximately the same time one waits in govt offices for getting a signature from some obese clerk. And finally,lo behold! the marvel of modern technology came to life with all the vibrance and vitality of a kathakali dancer. No wait! The picture was jumping at a rate faster than the heartbeat of a teenager watching his first adult film. "Thambi, go to the terrace and adjust the antenna", my mom orders me. Trudging up the stairs, I reach the antenna and proceed to twist it through a series of angles till I get a resounding affirmative yell from down below.

Hurrying down lest I miss some action, I quickly settle down into position and proceed to gaze at JL Baird's invention with all the interest of a concert buff watching Luciano Pavarotti's performance. Looking back to those days, I am convinced that if the DD Programme managers had the same taste in food as their taste in tv programmes, their idea of gourmet cuisine would then be kanji and upma.

But despite the insipid nature of all the programmes, we watched it all. Be it a bharatnatyam performance by a woman overloaded with makeup or a carnatic concert that would have driven insomniacs to the bed rightaway, we devoured everything. Even when an agricultural expert was discussing the best method for preventing grass from being grazed by cows, we listened to him with utmost seriousness. And in the next programme segment when a veterinarian was discussing the best method for getting cows to graze grass thoroughly, we paid him equal attention.

Ofcourse we've come a long way since those DD days. Nowadays we have a plethora of channels vying for our attention. Each one trying to come up with different ideas to halt the viewer from reaching for the remote. But looking at my cousin, it doesn't look like they are succeeding!