Sorry for the interruption!

I was surfing through the TV channels last week when I happened to catch sight of Doordarshan (DD), the only channel on our TV sets all through the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s. 


It was weird yet strangely comforting to see the old and once-familiar fixture on TV. Nothing had changed. The sets were still the same. The production effects had remained unchanged. The quality of the programming was as it used to be 30 years ago. 

In the 10 minutes I spent staring at the screen, re-living the nostalgia for all it was worth, the mandarins at DD were gracious enough to show me that frame with the cartoon, Rukawat ke liye khed hai. Hindi for — Sorry for the interruption. 

It took me back in time. I remembered those days from what now seems like an age ago when DD would often get its act wrong and the grownups would fume and wait for the problem to be rectified. There was nothing to do but wait. 

There was no remote control to be fought over, no other channel that you could turn to for respite. Nothing but DD across the vast expanse of television.

While the adults fretted and waited, we children would rush out of the house. The playing fields beckoned us. We used to play games like Hide-and-seek, Hopscotch (langdi), Blind man’s bluff, Dog and the bone, I spy, Leapfrog, Simon says (Shivaji mhannto), Cops and Robbers (chor police), Musical chairs, Human chain, Kabaddi, Kho kho and Lagori and numerous other games whose names I have to dredge out from the deepest recesses of my memory.


No special equipment was required for any of these games. All you needed to bring to the playground was huge reserves of energy and enthusiasm and whoops of delight and laughter. You didn't even need a playground. We got along mighty fine, playing in one another's houses, or on staircase landings. 


Certain games were the preserve of the girls. They included skipping sessions, cat's cradle, played with a long string looped around the two thumbs and fingers, Oranges and Lemons etc. Does anyone remember Fire on the mountain, run, run, run?


Chinese whispers was frowned upon by the boys that we grew up with, most of whom were the brothers of the girls. As a child, I often thought that the reason boys didn't like this game was because they were too competitive and they could not stomach the idea of a game in which there was no winner.
Boys had their own games which were generally out of bounds for the girls. They used to play marbles. Dodge ball (aba dubi) was another favourite of the boys. They seemed to derive some perverse pleasure out of assaulting one another with a ball, while trying to escape being hit themselves. The boys who were hit during the course of this game used to howl in pain, and forget the pain a moment later when they realised that the ball was now in their hands and it was payback time.


No one went home until they were called by their mothers at least three times, and then they reluctantly trudged home with the air of someone to whom a great injustice had been done.

We used to spend all our holidays and free time scampering about and frolicking. When we were exhausted from playing, we invented games. When it rained, we played noughts and crosses, snakes and ladders, carrom. Most of us had a pack of playing cards. Some afternoons, we enjoyed refreshing siestas. Other days we read — comics, novels, magazines. We expanded our minds. 


I am not saying there was nothing worth watching on DD. There were gems like Wagle ki Duniya, Giant Robot, Rajani, Malgudi Days, Jungle Book, Flop Show, Karamchand, Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, Bharat Ek Khoj, Surabhi, Mile sur mera tumhara, the I love Lucy series etc that were very entertaining. 

Chhayageet and chitrahaar had huge fan followings. As did Sunday evening screenings of Hindi films and Sunday afternoon screenings of regional films. 



But generally there were so few entertainment options that we often sat through the News magazine for the hearing impaired. Sometimes we were so desperate for something to watch on TV that we used to sit impatiently through the warmup sessions that DD subjected us to. 

Remember that screen with the vertical colour stripes? It used to give way to a black screen and then a red dot which would re-cast itself, twisting this way and that, until it eventually revealed the logo of the channel. All this while the most mournful and depressing signature tune in existence played on.

But the best thing about DD then was that it shut off and said goodbye. It was not a 24-hour monster. It was like a travelling circus. For some hours of the day, the TV stopped being a piece of furniture and came alive. It showed us a few images, played out a few songs, then packed up and left. 

Leaving us with those black and white pixels dancing their crazy dance to the accompaniment of the heavy rain beating down upon an asbestos sheet roof. 


Because of that enforced selective viewing, we had a life outside the idiot box. 

We didn't spend all of our childhoods and growing years in front of it. 

We didn’t sit in front of the television, physically and mentally incapacitated, bored out of our wits, hoping that the next serial, film, cartoon or reality show would be truly worth watching. 

We had friends with whom we enjoyed boisterous playtime sessions. And today we have wonderful memories.

Thank you, Doordarshan, on behalf of all those who were children in the ’70s, ’80s and much of the ’90s. We made fun of you. We laughed at your inadequacies and your incompetencies. We bemoaned the lack of any good entertainment or education options. 

But because of you, we learned to read. 

Because of you, we learned to enjoy playtime with other kids our age. 

And because your programming was interrupted so often, we were able to step outdoors and get on with our lives. 

Help! I see UFOs everywhere

My life is a saga of UFOs. Not the kind that publicity-seeking folks claimed to see in the '70s. My UFOs are numerous Unfinished Objects that punctuate my life, waiting endlessly for me to fulfill the plan I once had for them.


There they lie. The 52,800-cross-stitches-strong piece of art that should have been framed and occupied pride of place on the wall of my living room, but is still at least 39,600 stitches away from the finish line, is an excellent example of this tendency to do tomorrow what should have been done yesterday.


Other UFOs are not even this lucky. Ask the six balls of white crochet yarn that appeal to me silently every time I look into the corner of the cupboard into which they have been consigned. They wait with the patience and serenity of a saint for me to decide just what I envision for them. My indecisiveness and, let me admit, my laziness and tendency to procrastinate conspire to exile them into the distant future where they remain stuck in limbo. Incapable, for no fault of theirs, of being able to fulfill the promises and expectations I had for them.


There are other UFOs in my life. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is one of them. For some strange and inexplicable reason, I have never been able to read beyond page 9, even though I’ve attempted to often enough. Each time I start from the first page, determined that this time I will see this thing through to the end. But then comes that dreaded page 9 and something always threatens further reading. Another book, a film, domestic chores, too much office work, the need to spend quality time with my daughter.


Clearly well begun is not always half-done. The best of well begun intentions can remain frozen in the perfect beginning.


The coming of age novel that has given up on the hope of ever seeing the light of day simply because I can’t get a grip on how it will end; the 63-poem collection that I cannot submit for publication until I achieve the just-right (or so it seems to me) figure of 100; this blog and another one, Rheamyprincess, to mark the joy that my little darling has brought into my life — they are all projects that I once started with extreme excitement but which now languish for want of attention. They are all mute victims of this 'let unfinished things lie' syndrome.


I am reminded of Penelope from Greek mythology. This enterprising lady, queen of Ulysses, the king of Ithaca, had her marriage interrupted after a year of marriage by the Trojan War. During his absence, the beautiful Penelope was wooed by a number of suitors, all of whom sought to convince her that her husband would never return alive.


Unwilling to give up hope for her husband and unsure of how to get out of her predicament, Penelope busied herself in weaving a robe for the funeral canopy of Laertes, her father-in-law. She told the suitors that she would smile upon one of them once the robe was complete. Meanwhile, she worked diligently at weaving the robe during the day, and at un-weaving it during the night.


Her ruse has now become a popular expression for something which is always being done but never finished. The story of my life, although mine is not quite so Penelopian in its compulsions.

Go, go, go

I was watching Collateral Damage yesterday when I was struck by how familiar a voice in the film which shouted, "Go, go, go, let's get moving," or some words to that effect sounded. And that was when it struck me.

It was the same voice that I've heard before in countless Hollywood action flicks where an authoritative voice needs to nudge people into collective action. I like to think of the owner of that voice as an ordinary, unassuming bloke who becomes quite another man when asked to issue a directive, nay, give out a command. For the most part, he probably goes through life quiet and unassuming, but when there is a need, his words, high-pitched and insistent to convey the impression that the speaker is in the throes of passionate action, galvanise others into strong and decisive action.

Today on the railway platform, as women commuters around me, sighting the approach of the train, gathered their wits and their belongings together for the partly physical but mostly mental exercise of leaping onto the train, one woman, who stood behind the small crowd, took a leaf from the book of our super competent Mr Voice of Authority and called out, “Ladies, train aane par sar kate murgiyonki tarah mat pesh aao. Jald se jald chadhne ki koshish karo. Come on, ladies, go, go, go.” (Ladies, when the train comes in, don’t behave like headless chickens. Get on to the train as soon as possible.)

Her words elicited a disgusted and disgruntled look from her listeners. There were one or two women whose faces indicated that if it hadn't been for the pressing business of getting aboard the train, they would surely have welcomed the opportunity to clobber her on the head. Clearly voices of authority must be heard, and not seen.

The action flick guy had the advantage in this. Because he is in a film, people listen to his voice. In real life, people have no use for voices, unless they resound within their own heads.