Television meh!

I don’t like watching television. I don’t have a television at my place. While growing up, my sister and I always fought for the remote control. My sister won most of the times. She liked watching English movies, Bournvita Quiz Contest, Rendezvous with Simi Garewal or some Hindi soap opera. . . while I wanted to watch cartoons or music videos. Very seldom we could agree on our choice of entertainment. She was undoubtedly the reigning queen. I slowly gave up and found better things (read mischiefs) to do at home. Even after my sister left for college and I had the television and our bedroom all for myself, I never got addicted to television.

Now I don’t understand why people watch television when they can watch anything they want on the internet. I am from the Netflix generation in that I can’t wait for episodes week after week. I want all my episodes together so that I can binge watch them in a marathon. Whenever I watch television I rarely find anything of interest. And I hate it when people watch two three things at the same time on different channels by switching back and forth. I would much rather read, listen to or watch things on the internet as per my convenience.

When I come home I am forced to watch some television. Soap operas to be specific. These days even my dad has become an ardent follower of some serials. He asks my mom for updates if he happens to miss an episode. Both of them have quite intense conversations about the characters in the serial, as if they are talking about someone they know so well. It’s funny. “She is trying to frame you, don’t listen to her!” “Oh now he is going to do that!” “Look at her. So vicious. How can you trust anyone these days!” are some of the things I have overheard my parents say.

All these serials are the same I have realized. Loud make-up, long internal monologues, melodramatic dialogues, tears, facial expressions, slow motion, eye movements, bright colours, lot of gold, sensational background score. The storylines are hyper dramatized to add some masala in the uneventful daily lives of Indian middle class people who watch these serials and thank God that they are better off. These serials keep playing in the background while the mother is busy in a household chore. The dramatic sound effect is the cue for her to turn and look at the television to see what is happening.

I miss watching music videos of the 90s. Remember Silk route dooba dooba video? Falguni Pathak’s videos. . . Piya basanti re. . . Maairi . . . Shaan’s music videos. . . Colonel Cousins. . . Sonu Nigam’s videos. I may cringe while watching some of them today but they were my super favourite at that time and still bring a smile of warm innocent nostalgia whenever I am in the mood to watch them on Youtube.