Dukh darshan

Back in the days when I was a kid, TV consisted of 1 or 2 channels broadcast by an entity that is (affectionately ?) now called Dukhdarshan. TV was something that was not meant for kids and considered (quite rightly) a waste of time. Colour television had come to India before I was born in 1982, but it took a bit more for a colour TV to arrive in my home. I have pretty hazy memories of our old TV set.

From what I can recollect, it was probably made by some sarkari PSU like UPTron (for the lesser informed ... UPTron was something like UP Electronics. There was a Keltron too; from Kerala). It had a two wooden panes in front of the screen, which had to be opened in order to view the TV. Dont have much idea about the controls, wasnt allowed to fiddle too much with it.

Sometime in the mid 80s, the old made way for the new and a colour Beltek television was bought. It had a control panel which had switches for 9 channels, which was a bit of an overkill for those times. It wasnt till the advent of cable TV did 9 channels feel woefully inadequate. This Beltek TV was the one on which I watched most of the TV in my life. So just for the sake of nostalgia, here are some of the popular things on TV of those times:

Buniyad: This was a serial watched mainly by the adults of the family. I have no idea about the story, or even a vague recollection of its content.

Humlog: See Buniyad.

Nukkad: I have a vague recollection about this serial. There was some drunkard called Khopdi in it. Apart from that, no clue.

Ulta pulta: A Jaspal Bhatti offering, I was too small to remember the contents of this show. However, I vividly remember his Flopshow, which will be mentioned later.

Karamchand: The carrot chewing detective, with his bumbling moll called Kitty. Pankaj Kapoor rocked in this serial. As a matter of fact, I saw a hoarding the day before ... Karamchand is going to be back on TV (Sony) after 20 years!! Eagerly waiting for it.

Byomkesh Bakshi: This was a fanstastic serial, with National award winning actor Rajit Kapur playing the lead role. Everyone used to eagerly wait for each episode and it used to be the topic of discussion in school the next day. Last year, I got an urge to to read the stories of this Sherlock-like detective. After many disappointments, Midlands was able to order the book from me. I was realy happy to get my grubby hands on it!

Dekh Bhai Dekh: The serial which established Shekhar Suman as the funny man. It was probably the original serial about a rich joint family, before Kekta KKapurr unleashed her creative (?) instincts. The episodes shot in London were probably a first for Indian television. It was eagerly awaited each week, I even followed re-runs for some time on Sony.

Flopshow: Iss serial ke baare main jitna kaha jaye ... kam hai. Jaspal Bhatti is the king of comedy. The crisp dialogues, the hilarious parodies all woven into situations which the aam-aadmi faced. Should be preserved for posterity, so that future generations can get a glimpse into what life was like. In today's day and age of the mobile one, one would be hard pressed to understand why someone was willing to marry his daughter to a telephone line man!

Ramayan: Ramanand Sagar's best known work, probably best known for its cheap "special effects". It set the guidelines for all mythologicals made henceforth, especially regarding the behaviour of arrows in battle. Kind of arrows shown, with their appearance and "effect", it was truly mind-boggling.

Mahabharat: BR Chopra's Mahabharat was light years ahead of Ramanyan in terms of everything (except the story :P). I have heard that streets used to be deserted and Parliament and Cabinet meetings were re-scheduled around it. The sets and acting were superb. Have watched many re-runs.

Chandrakanta: An extremely confusing serial telecast in the mid 90s. Chandrakata, as the name suggests was named after a character named Chandrakanta, who was a princess. The confusing part is that she probably never made an appearance after the first few episodes. In fact, the kingdoms of Naigarh and Vijaygarh (jinn main thi takrar) were also largely absent. Instead, a parallel story line forked off somewhere in Junagadh, where comic characters like Kruror Singh, Pandit Jaganath etc abounded. As a friend remarked a few days ago, all that Pandit Jaganath did was to throw dice and do some mumbo-jumbo ... do char aath matlab Junagadh par khatra!! The presence of duplicates and duplicates of duplicates made things all the more confusing. Good riddance.

Didi's Comedy Show: A German show; it dubbed into English for telecast. Starring Dieter Hallervorden it was as the English title suggested, Non Stop Nonsense. There were many reruns of it on Doordarshan and I remember watching each one of them. The strange thing is that none of my college friends seem to have watched it. Any reader who had watched this serial is urged to comment in support!

Telematch: Another German show dubbed in English, it showed teams from different German cities competing against each other in funny competitions. Kind of the stuff seen on Pogo these days, with a voice-over by Javed Jaffery; only Telematch was infinitely better, given that it did not have Javed Jaffery.

Polti Baba: Nice children's serial with puppets telling a story.

This is of course not an exhaustive list about the nice things on TV in those days. Havent purposefully mentioned Tu Tu Main Main and Shriman Shrimati. Zabaan Sambhalke was also nice. Might write about the nice things on Sony sometime in the future. I Dream of Jeanie, Dennis the Menace, Different Strokes, Bewitched and Who's the Boss were really great. Too bad they stopped telecasting them. Chamatkar starring Farukh Sheikh was awesome too.

It is a pity that now television consists only of rich families consisties of weepy bahus and scheming vamps. The only watchable Hindi serial, The Comedy Show on Star One appears to have been cancelled. Looks like everyone wants to cater to the lowest common denominator. Thats why Kekta Kapur and Karan Johar are laughing all the way to the bank :(.