DD & DD
I was nostalgic when I opened a mail my brother had sent me oflate. It was a forward of a movie-clip. Well, not exactly a 'movie'. It was a cartoon film by NCERT named "ek-anek-aur-ekhta". It was a return of my childhood for the next 7 minutes as I started playing that clip. Those days, some 15 years back, when 6.30am used to be too early and 9.00pm used to be too late... Those days when there was the unquestioned reign of the DD...no no not me, for a change;-) It's the DoorDarshan, the national channel I'm talking about. Memories started unfolding in my mind as I started travelling back in time to "those days".
Everyday, at 6am (I guess so!) the DD comes alive with a red ball of .... of mmm.... of something (someone knows what it is?) rotating in a black background, shaping itself into the DD logo with a typical slow music I can still feel ringing in my ears! Following suite is the "Vande Maataram" sung in beautiful female voice. There were days when I used to hopelessly try singing along and felt happy for whatever little bit I did succeed.
The TV was never cursed that time, may be bcos it held a restricted yet respectable position in our lives. It was a luxury to watch movies during weekends. I used to wait for fridays to watch "Oliyum OLiyum" and wednesdays for Chitrahaar. The daily news were a regular part of my daily lives. Shobana Ravi & Fatima Babu used to be my favorite Tamil news readers those days. There were a few days when my mom and I used to watch "World This Week" with Pranay Roy anchoring it. Talking of news, how can anybody forget the Urudu news and 'News for Hearing Imparied' telecast every Sunday afternoon? Hindi was always a welcome for me, with whatever little I understood that time. The rest of my family had a different (rather indifferent) opinion though! Nevertheless, I did manage to see few hindi movies and songs, not to forget the 'Ramayana' series and 'The Sword of Tipu Sultan'!
Ah...Sundays! They are really blessed days, I should say. Sundays were invariably tight scheduled for me, the He-Man was my hero then. I used to gape when he draws his sword and his companion tiger was not to be missed! The 'Goodmorning Disney' came to replace this legendary series... the Uncle Scrooge (excuse me with the spelling!)-the Miser and his $Dollar$ empire... the Launchpad character... the Ballu in Tailspin... Mowgli in Jungle book!! The very title-music of these cartoon series used to bind us tight to the TV... and I and my brother literally burried all our other priorities, be it the most obvious homework and studies to even food and play sometimes.
Apart from the mainstream entertainment, there were these cartoon snippets from NCERT based on some themes such as literacy, Unity in Diversity, Work to be Healthy, Saving trees and environment and what not! The very music and words in 'Suraj ek, Chanda ek, taare anekh' and 'Padna Likhna..' sticked to my mind and slipped through my lips! Those days were really blissful, when everything was in calculated quantities.
Now I get to see some 40 odd channels in cable connection, but never get that happiness I used to feel then! The same songs, same movies, same serials and programs repeating day and night... from channel to channel... I just landup surfing the channels rather than watching TV! The songs or movies or any other entertainment for that matter, has lost it's charm! Our greed to have fulltime entertainment has ultimately takenout the very magic of it. Sadly now,
TV has become an Idiot box! Or should we rephrase it as an Idiot's box?
posted by DD @ 6:00 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
I think that DD's logo was designed by National Institute of Design. I guess it symbolises the world. You could still find it playing in DD channels early in the morning. And, I think it is/was 5 or 5:30. Go watch it tomorrow :-).
And yeah, you forgot to add a note on the "coloured" screen which use to come just before the show started. There used to be two channels - national and regional. The regional one used to start only at 5:30 or so in the evening. Till then, they would just show that "coloured" screen with a sound, you know. As soon as it was 5:30, they would announce the shows for the week. That's how I learned the tamil names for the days of the week. And, I still wonder what "Wonder Ballon" serial was for. The name sounded funny then, I dont know why. And then there were movies on sundays, when you would hardly find a soul on the road at that time.
From then till now, it has undergone lots of changes, from part time to full time, from one channel to many, to translating hindi serials to regional language, etc. All for good, I think.
The coloured screen is actually a test screen, using which you are *somehow* supposed to be able to adjust the colour/contrast/etc. balance.
oh wow! Interesting piece of info, Vijay!
Speaking of "Wonder Ballon", there used to be summer vacation special childrens program in the afternoons around 1pm... if I remember it right, it was called "Guchche". I enjoyed it a lot! You had learnt Tamil and I learnt Hindi:-) Thanks to DD!
Oh ya, I missed the 'translated serials' part... but it was later in time, I guess. And know what, the Hindi-Tamil mix(Tamil words arranged as per Hindi Grammar!)is referred to as "Junoon Tamil" in some recent tamil movie! Cool na? I remember watching them as though a practical comedy show!
Biju, the *rainbow* color screen comes with National channel. But for Metro channel(available to only Chennai viewers, something I then majorly cirbed about!) I've seen a different screen.. It is just black&white dabbas(square/rectange) with some mysterious long arrow pointing downwards in the center of the screen! I donno what design was that!
One more thing comes to my mind when talking of such annoying portions... the time count shown just before beginning any news! It may be apt to call "Height of Timepass" :-)
How can one forget the 1.30 pm movies every Sunday varying from Hindi to Malayalam to Kannada to Bengali? Though I never used to understand, I would still watch to do some timepass. I also liked the S.V.Shekhar comedy serials. Has anyone found them in the form of CDs? Would like to purchase them.
Hey Anu, even I recall sitting through a Punjabi film once. Oh, I was a solo against my whole family who had to fight my right to watch anything other than Tamil those days!
True! SVS was a major hit then... So was our very own Crazy Mohan. We used to glue ourselves to the TV set for 'Vanna Kolangal' and 'Here is Crazy' series.
I remember someone say there are audio cassettes available on Crazy Mohan and SVS. So CDs too should be available... just check it out!
DD, am here!! But reallly late! :) Your post brings me back the forgotten programmes in DoorDarshan..I would definitely agree with what you say - with so many channels now, I don't sit with one channel for more than 10 minutes..I just keep surfing and surfing and land up seeing nothing for good..
Talking of DD, remember "Mile Sur Mera tumara?" i used to love watching it!
Hey Annu! Nice seeing your comment here!!
"Mile Sur..." is a great hit even now! One of my friends had recently sent me a video clip - a reenactment of the same song by her college group in US!
Durga, I landed up at your post during a blog search. Reading it did bring back nice memories. I share most of your feelings as well. I used to watch world of sports too at 4 pm Sunday? and another western live music program (mostly concerts) - I can't recall the name.
I couldn't agree more with your last paragraph.
"I just landup surfing the channels rather than watching TV! The songs or movies or any other entertainment for that matter, has lost it's charm! Our greed to have fulltime entertainment has ultimately takenout the very magic of it."
Well said.
That's why I don't watch TV at all these days. Its been about 10 months now. I don't miss it. When I'm interested in a program, I recorded it (except for news of course) and watch over weekend, skipping all the ads.
In my opinion, mega serials are total waste of time, yet almost everyone is hooked on to it. We could use that time for better purposes.
I enjoyed reading comments to this post by other bloggers (your friends?) as well.
For all DoorDarshan Lovers here are the un-forgettable sound tracks.
www.braindose.com/dd
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