Looking Back at Television

In early 80s, when I was 9 or so. Lakshmiah Naidu - the rich man of the Pagadamanu Street, Chittoor - bought a TV. Along with the other kids, we used to flock his house. They accommodated us for the first few days, but after the crowd became unmanageable, they shut the door on us. And left the window open. So, there was fierce competition among the kids for the window space so much so that I used to literally hang by the window grill - sometimes up to 45 minutes, just to watch those moving pictures on that Dyanora black and white TV. We were not concerned with what program was on; even the DD1 show on how to make fuel from cow dung was ok. It never ceased to amaze me that a little box was showing moving-talking pictures... I used to rack my brains about how it did it, and used to pester prof. Krishna rao whenever we visited him. He had no clue but used to put me to sleep with a long-winded, and hypothetical thesis on how TV works.
My dad used to catch me now and then on my 'hang and watch' trips, and beat me up for being so cheap and he almost always stopped beating me when I popped the question 'why the hell can't we get our own TV?'
In the middle of 1982, we had to move to Chennai. We used to live among 10 families; all housed in small 'portions'. The landlords lived on the first floor terrace, and they had the only TV in the 'compound'. Mr.Naidu's family was almost philanthropic compared to our new landlord. The mean old man -our landlord - used to throw me out 'get out you fit for nothing twerp' he used to shout. And I used to grudgingly climb down the stairs swearing to myself that I wont ever step into that house again. But then again, I used to conveniently forget that promise and would promptly show up the next day. The old man's wife -the landlady - was a nice woman. She used to allow me inside. But the old man used to have the last laugh anyway. At the stroke of 7:30 in the evening, he'd announce 'ok we are having dinner now, get out you jobless idiots!' and I used to walk out swearing to myself again that I won't look at this direction again. I used to write to my dad in Delhi (we came to Chennai as he was transferred to Delhi for a couple of years), and every letter always asked this question 'when are we buying TV?' We moved back to Chittoor in 1984 after my dad came back from Delhi. Still no TV!

We got our first TV - a black and white portable - in 1989. That is how long it took a middle class dad to satisfy his perseverant second son (me, me, me) - who was now 16 and TV had become a status symbol �more so because- his girl friend had a 'colour TV'. Life is never fair! The TV dumped me before that girl friend did (1994 March 11 :) ). It blew-up one fine summer morning in 1990. I was alone, and my dad had no doubt whatsoever that I blew it up. So I fixed the TV out of my pocket money :(

My interest in our black & white TV waned during that period as all my friends had colour TVs and I used to be in one of their homes almost everyday. And then, Star TV happened. It changed the world for me. It introduced me to Mtv and ruined my grand ma's peace as I started playing all that rock/metal music at home at full-blast. She threatened to walk out of the house because of that but a well-timed trick by my younger brother saved us: he told her that in a competition between Michael Jackson and M.S.Subbulakshmi, MJ won by a huge margin, and that even MS listens to MJ! She brushed it aside, but never called MJ or any other pop/rock star 'devil's off-spring' or 'saniyan' or 'paradesi naay' [naay = dog and you know what paradesi means].
The family -but for my dad and I - moved to Chennai in 1993. I finished college and was chilling out in Chittoor, with the house all for myself, there was no looking back, and we partied everyday. And whenever the cable guy messed up I used to fight with him. At times, it used to get ugly. He'd scream 'you can't accommodate more than ten channels!' I used to yell back 'Where are you living moron? Nigeria? The other cable guy airs 40 channels!' or 'Does your mother know about your brain damage?' He was hilarious; he used to give stupid excuses like 'black and white TVs won't get Zee Tv' and the next time he came for payment I gave him 50% of the original amount and said 'this is all we pay for black and white TVs'
After so many struggles, grand ma, incorrigible cable guys, and 1000 miles later, I walked into a shop in Indore in December 2001 and bought a portable colour TV (Salora - don't laugh!). The transaction took me exactly five minutes. "How much's that?" "5000" "pack it."
We all have come a longway, haven't we?

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