Happy INDIAN Republic Day!!!

Today is Republic Day in India. First thing it reminds me of is the 26 January parade (or here). The annual parade in New Delhi telecast on DD (Delhi Doordarshan, the national Government TV Channel). & also the Flag hosting ceremony in school with free sweet s at the end (& early day off!!!). And second thing is the long essays we had to write in most of the exams & tests in Primary school for Republic Day.... here's the link to last two blogs I wrote: Blog1 & Blog2.

Happy Republic Day INDIA... Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.... JAI HO!!!

New TV Days... Cable/Satelite TV

(continued from last time, click here & read this first...)

Then came the first Hindi satellite channel "ZEE TV" which was broadcasted only at prime-time and rest of the day you could see a big Zee logo on the TV with random songs. The new favorites were Zee horror show, Snakes & Ladders and some others (which I don't remember). And with this the cable TV started creeping on us with Sony & Star coming in picture as well. Although I remember a certain time when DD2 again was becoming popular with an array of new shows like Dushman, Kabhi Sautan Kabhi Saheli, Superstars & many others but it didn't last long. Also the quality of shows on DD has highly deteriorated and most of them are not even worth considering. But all we see on Cable/Satellite channels now is some boring/stupid TV Serials and Reality-Shows/Talent-Hunts. All we see is people dancing, singing, comedy & other arts and most of the time its those serial actors competing & forgotten actors/celebs judging the shows. The results of these shows are mostly disappointing most of the public, inspite of the fact its claimed that they are selected by public voting. Like Baichung Bhutia won Jahalak Dikhla Ja-3 whereas I thought that either Gauhar Khan or Hard Kaur should have been the winner. Or Salman Khan won Dance India Dance who didn't do anything more than circus & acrobatics; but Jai, Siddhesh or Alisha deserved it better. The worst was the show Pehchaan Kaun where the worst copycat Rajat Bahagt who used to mimic Salman in Asrani style won, whereas Raja Sagoo who was not only doing Salman act well but many others, lost. Then There's MTV & Channel V kinda youth channel's which show Roadies & V-Gyan kinda shows which aren't bad but, I am not sure if they are good for young kids. Our parents used to stop us from watching those DD stuff but imagine the kids watching what all they show on TV these days!!

So friends & foes... keep reading, commenting and promoting. What do you think about days of TV now & then? Wanna share any memories?? Waiting to hear from you... This is RAHUL saying Good Bye & Good Luck... JAI HO!!!!!

Old TV Days... DD Days

Remember the good old days of Doordarshan... the only channel you could get was DD and that's all you could watch. I think we would be the only bunch of people or the generation who grew up on those amazing & educational/inspirational sort of entertainment. Waking up early Sunday mornings to watch Rangoli (i hardly wake up before 10-12 now!!). And the next on list were:
- Ramayan remember Dara Singh speaking shudh hindi in Punjabi Accent, always felt like he would say "Satshriakaal Ramji" just any time. The streets & markets used to get empty & peopel used to worship thereTV before putting the show on. Ther used to be gathering of whole village or colonys on people's home who had TV.

- Mahabharat every charcter unique & etched in our memories, starting from Mukesh Khanna as Bheeshm to Puneet Issar as Duryodhan & all others. And the ultimate, "main, samay hoon".
- Chandrakanta taught us about 'Aiyyari' & 'Yakkooooo', Kroor Singh was actually cool singh with spikey hair at that time which has become fashion now. Heard there's a movie coming with Amitabh & Abhishek.
- and 'all that' (this comes from my recent reading of Inscrutable Americans).
Other kids-favorites were:
- Sigma (A sci-fi show which I don't remember now except that we used to imitate some guy Shakti in School & Games. I dont remember much except that)
- Jungle Book jungle-jungle baat chali hai pata chala hai, chaddhi pehen ke phool khila hai-phool khila hai; and ofcourse Nana Patekar's voice as Sher Khan
- Betaal Pachisi indian version of Phantom, I guess the first Indian superhero with underwear outside pants!!
- Shaktimaan The 1st and Best Indian Hero till now. Mukesh Khanna was the superhero Shaktimaan but was more aweosme as Pandit Gangadhar Vidyadhar Mayadhar Onkarnath Shastri, i still remember it!!
- Captain Vyom Milind Somen as Captain Vyom was cool & the special-effects were quite flashy too.
- Disney shows including Duck Tales & Talespin who can forget Uncle Scrooge and his swimming pool of dollars. Launch Pad always crashing & saying Mr McD. And the sweet Baloo & Ritika Malaingam of Talespin...
Also were the afternoon usuals like HeMan, SuperMan, Samurai, Chhutti-Chhutti (hahahehe, ho gai chhutti) etc. Wednesday Evenings were exclusively for Chitrahaar ofcourse, being the only second song program on TV. Rest of the days had there own favorites of Nukkad, Fauji, Circus (Shahrukh Khan the TV star), Malgudi Days (Swami & his frineds, singing ta-nana-tana-nana-naa), Karamchand (Pankaj Kapur with Sushmita Mukherjee as witty Kitty), Chanakya, Byomkesh Bakshi (India's bengali take on Sherlock Holmes with Rajit Kapur), Tahqeeqat (another take on Sherlock Holmes starring Vijay Anand & Saurabh Shukla,'smoking is bad for health'), Dekh Bhai Dekh (Shekhar Suman & Waheeda Rehman with many others. have heard they are making a movie on this), Tenaliraman, Tipu Sultan (Sanjay Khan did a wonder with this) and many others. And remember Kille Ka Rahasya (all i remember is watching it hidden in rajai & being scared all the time), the only horror show on TV and Surabhi (I remember Renuka Shanhe, we sent answers to some of there contest questions but never got prize) was the most informative of the lot. The shows had there fixed timings without any repeat telecasts and so we had to be on time and if you miss some you didn't even get Recap or Forecap. I don't think there were many commercials either except those lovely message-ads like "Surajk ek, chanda ek" & "Miley sur mera tumhara", i just loved all those. Ofcourse there weren't any daily soaps nor was the channel a 24 hour show. And comparing to what comes on TV now, it was way better stuff. But still parents were so strict in letting us watch even these stuff and always had a NO-NO for most of them. "This is not good for you, TV watching is not good.. study, or better play outside". LOLzzzzzzzzzzz

We used to have a BIG wooden box kinda TV (i guess it could actually fit in all the people used to show). Needed 2 people to lift it, but I was so excited when it came to our house more than 20 yrs back. The regulator kinda channel selector would have been annoying but who cared with just one channel on air. Beat it on the sides when it doesnt work and I guessyou may even use it as a couch or table, LOL. Anyways, remember the cool stuff from old DD Days which are etched in our memories, here's some which I remember:
- Nritya Ka Akhil Bhartiya Program biggest hindi sentence on TV- "aap to woh mengi wali tikiya... leti thi, magar wohi safedi aur wohi jhaag agar kam daamo mein miley to - koi yeh kyun le, woh naa le!!" & "Lifeboy hai jahan, tandarusti hai wahan"- Namskar, aap dekh rahe hain Hindi Samachaar like I tuned in to watch Michael Jackson Dancing, thanks for the information.- Rukaawat Ke Liye Khed Hai just AWESOME, could show up anytime!!

(to be continued, click here to read...)