Television

5 Crores on Kaun Banega Crorepati

Sushil Kumar, Anonymous, finally has won the grandest prize of all on Indian television, 5 crores in a game show hosted by Amitabh Bachchan (KBC). What makes the story so captivating and gut wrentching is the fact that the guy who won, makes 6000 bucks a month working as a computer operator and a private tutor. On the promo, he comes across as under confident, miss understood, dreamer and everything else that I can easily relate to.

Like, I was thinking yesterday, its not about the amount but about the fact that any individual from anywhere in the country today can realize his dreams. It reinforces my belief that nothing is impossible in life!

And yes, blame me for being yet another fool that Indian Television Industry has been monetizing for decades.

Remembering Duck Tales

When I was growing up (I still am), on TV, there used to be just good old Doordarshan. And it was the time when Sundays were important. More important than anything else. I would not miss the Sunday for anything. I used to wait the entire week for Sunday. I would make sure I had done my homework on Saturday night itself. On Sunday, I would get up early, get ready, was bathed and powdered and my hair parted on the left side, I would sit in front of TV at exact 9, waiting for the clock to strike 10. I would be the perfect kid. I would give no reason to my mom or my dad to disturb me that day. It the most important time of my life.

At dot 10, Duck Tales with its awesome intro music would start beaming. And with it, I would get lost in a fantasy world of Uncle Scrooge, Beagle Boys, Magica, Launchpad and all the pranks played by Luey, Huey and Duey (I dont really remember the names). I used to wish I had an Uncle like Scrooge McDuck who would literally be flooded with money. I wanted to have brothers like Luey, Huey and Duey. I wanted to have a nanny like Mrs. Beakley. I wanted to have a friend like Launchpad. I wanted my life to be life that. Full of action, adventure, suspense, comedy and emotions.

Life was so perfect. There were no worries. No decisions to make – their was only one channel and hence the simple decisions. Moreover the ads were very limited. There used to be just one commercial break and the ads of Cadbury’s Tobu Cycles etc. were lot more fun that the ones right now. (Ok, not Tobu Cycles but Cadbury’s for sure).

And obviously next day at school, at the lunch break, there were sessions where we discussed everything that happened during the show. We would talk about funny incidents. We debated about strategies that they should have taken.

And now, we have serials that started with TV channels and in all probability they would never end. There is no wait. Life moves at a snails pace. I happened to see Kyonki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi few weeks ago and they were still talking about Tulsi and Ba. I mean its been 10 years since Tulsi has been contemporary and is most talked about Bahu in the history of India.

Sincerely wish if those days could be back. Need to write another post on Tale Spin, Dekh Bhai Dekh, Zabaan Sambhaal Kay etc. And if you want to read more about TV shows from those times, read my earlier post here.

I have the sound tracks of both Duck Tales and Tales Spin. Please email me in case you need em.

Jack Bauer – 24

I have been following the life of Jack Bauer for about a month now.

Jack gives me immense sense of confidence in ones ability. He epitomizes rebel, exceptional talent, hardwork, reflexes and other virtues unheard of in humans.

Respectfully Submitted,
Joe.

P.S.: The above post indicates what life could be like for someone who eats, breathes and thinks television. And Yes, I absolutely love the TV series. Its drama, action, suspense and everything else that you can think of.

The “really idiot” Idiot Box

I have always felt that making a good comedy show is very difficult. You can make scary movies, suspense movies, thrillers; just about anything but making a comic show is real hard. This is also proved by n number of shows on TV and m number of movies and just about 1 divided by m multiplied by n actually manage to get a very faint smile.

Ever since I completed my education, I have been confined in my house. Although I am a proven claustrophobic, I can manage in my home without much difficulties. Respite being provided by a huge terrace and few friends who have managed to not work in a call centre. Almost everyone works in some call centre aka BPO aka KPO aka Value Added Service Provider. It is real hard on someone like me who

– hates television,
– reads the newspaper in one sitting in the morning and
– has an erratic internet connection that can’t work more than 10 minutes on stretch

to sit at home and spend time.

So because of all the above citied reasons, I am forced to watch television. The very first problem is the sheer number of channels on air. My good old BPL television has all of 32 channels and I have hard time selecting 32 out of about 100 channels that are beamed down to my home.

By the way these 100 channels include at least 40 regional channels with all the languages like Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Bangla etc thrown in. So much for unity in diversity. I can only understand one channel in a diverse selection.

After those regional channels, there are about 20 odd movie channels that would air movies like Jungle Ki Sherni, Bhoot ka Badla, Basanti ka Baag, Andheri Raat Main .. so on and so forth. Who the hell thought of those names.

Then we would have some news channels. These channels are actually like any other entertainment channel with models clad in business suits acting as newsreaders. The stories are pepped up to touch the audience. Each news channel would have at least one sting operation running in daily and one news item about how they made world a better place to live by exposing someone with the sting operation. Further they would have a four digit number where you could sms your opinion about a certain issue. No offenses meant to him, I am also a huge fan, but today it was Aamir Khan‘s birth day and every channel had a marquee running with all the messages from people. I sometimes wonder do people actually send in the messages or the channels cook em up?

Not to forget some 10 odd channels where you would have sages and great souls delivering sermons. Some of these people would use an electric guitar, some would sing hindi film songs, some would have a ten year old kid crying and singing praises. And no one ever told them that they would put the worst bathroom singer to shame with their singing skills. The best part about these “religious” channels is the creative names. Aastha, Sanskar etc.

After all this, we have some sports channel and they would have WWF (not the wildlife fund but wrestling) all day long with commentry in Hindi. The kind of language used in that hindi commentry would put any “awara” to shame. And finally there would be a few channels left that you can spend time on (only if they are not showing those numerous saas-bahu sops and shows starting with letter K).

Ok this started out as a post to highlight a few good comedy series on television. I got emotional and got off-topic but here are a few good comedy shows on TV…
1. Lo Kal Lo Baat on Sab TV
2. Sarabhai vs. Sarabhai on Star One
3. The ever classic Dekh Bhai Dekh
4. Office Office on Sab TV
5. Khichdi on Star Plus

Would add more as and when I find more intersting shows or I can recall …