Sometimes it feels so good to stay away from the fast moving crowd, take time to think the past and cherish our memories. Don’t mistake me to be too old when I say this -): but a hard-to-believe fact is that even yesterday is a "well-documented, Carbon-dated history".
We hear about "Global village","Global shrink" these days. Have we ever thought of "Generation shrink?” Back in my college days, "Generation-gap" meant a gap between a father and a son- no more now! - Just take a cell phone( better,that big, Brick Stone kind of thing, when it hit the Indian market) and go to a nearby pan shop and, dare to ask the following question " saar, could you please let me know how to operate this instrument?”. People around would strangle their cigarette, fold the newspapers they were pretending to read, forget to gulp that half banana and gape at you, top to bottom. You will be the "talk of the Pan shop" for the next 5 minutes.-
Its years since the word GENERATION has been redefined.It’s no more an "emotional conflict" between a group of society and its previous, by age. It’s now "the ability to understand and adapt to the technological change in society ASAP". ASAP could even be just a day. You are older generation, if you don’t have a 10GB email id! Is this not a Generation Shrink?
coming to Children- they said, SSLC standards, then came Matriculation standards, then CBSE standard now the buzz word is "NRI standards”(IB, IGCSE etc) . Remember, you can’t teach your child anymore - my father, an English professor, used to teach me maths at my 6th grade. You, Whizzies, ever think you can teach computers to your child? Better think twice before you get "puppy shamed" right before your five-year old. Anything can happen at your sweet home- right from a small cyclone, something like- "Dad, what you say is wrong", to a big-unexpected tsunami, something like "Dare you touch my book.! being in big Company, don’t you know this simple thing?"-Imagine this question with guests in your home!(Could I ever dream of saying that to my dad? now, who takes the responsibility for all those five finger impressions on my back or belt after marks?).
Children now, are IRRITATINGLY well informed. Gone or those days when my father’s colleagues used to boast "don’t under-estimate me that I am only a B.A.iam an "anda kaalathu B.A"(meaning, B.A. of "those days").Do you have the guts to say to your immediate junior - "Hey respect me Iam a 2000 MCA pass out".he would immediately stop talking to you, saying "you are a dead -dot com,Y2K guy.chi.chi.".
Lets talk about Entertainment.
A big, never ending tug-of-war goes on in my mind, whenever I see those "Theme parks","Bowling", "PlayStations" "Xbox's", "Internet games"(you may not know, some naxalite or goonda might be your opponent in that internet Tennis game that you played last weekend- Funny isn't it?
But, the tug-of-war is, " Are these real Entertainments? "
you have I.Qs, you have E.Qs(emotional Quotient).How much would we all score if we have something like E.S.Q(Entertainment Satisfaction Quotient -). I am sure guys of my like will score a big Vedic Mathematical(that’s how they call maths now-a-days right?) invention(what else - Zero).!
Take TV for example. you cant go to a shop these days and say simply " I need a.a.huh.TV".Response from the shop owner would be " what TV sir? Flat TV, HDTV,LED? UHD? Curved??" Wait - these are not brand names, these are the types of TVs.!previously we had only one TV - "Panchayat TV"(and you cant get that, if it is installed, its installed).
And coming to the channels -my God, you can even count the stars and make them to a shape - Sharukh has already done that in Swades.but you can’t count the number of channels - it’s like our census - every minute something comes up and same minute, something merges or collapses. and not to mention about the programs-
Can we single out one person in the crowd, who, in the past one week, has, 1. switched on the TV. 2. sticked to a channel, 3. saw it completely 4. switched off the TV without tuning other channel? - any takers?
Why? guess, too much of Entertainment, that too, one, better over the other keeps us constantly on our toes to search for the BEST.” too many cooks spoil the broth" hmm.pretty old proverb- probably "too much entertainment spoils the purpose"!
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DoorDarshan - there were days when this was the synonym of Monopoly. as any Business management book would tell you, Monopoly is bless sometimes and monopoly is curse sometimes. Lets take only the "blessing in disguise" part of doordarshan now.
Doordarshan has had many negatives to its side, which looks positive now, when we retrospect it! Those "sorry for interruptions, those "Kisan" ka programs at a wrong, prime time, those "archeologically maintained pre-black&white" films, Chitrahar with "who-will-hear-this" kind of songs, and of-course, Doordarshan Patented "News for the hearing impaired(that "not-lean-not-fat" lady, virtually trying to keep bhindi all over your face and conducting a solo dance performance by sitting and We bechara-s, watching that even though we could hear, just because our favorite national-award-regional feature film is next on the line”. hold on! we do have some unrecoverable positives!
Has anyone, in the recent past, had an urge to hear the latest song that is running on the TV, from the film that has been released the same day? a big NO would be the answer. you have no urgency to hear that song - because the same would be telecasted in some other channel in the next 5 minutes. no worries. As the Air-Traffic-control carefully maintains the "no-clashing" trajectory schedule of all flights on Air, Channel walas see to it that the latest song doesn’t coincide with another channel on the same time.end Result? every half hour, you hear the same song and you start hating that song before you go to sleep.
I still remember the days of doordarshan. There used to be only one song program, on Fridays at 8pm. it runs only for half an hour and no big advertisement gaps. but of course, the song would be post-censored by doordarshan also, apart from censor board and all you would hear is 2MB of the total 7MB song.(guess, the resume for "chitrahar" program executive post is screened in, only if you were a tailor before).but still that was an excitement.
Quiz-time. hardly could anyone answer those questions of SidharthaBasu.I used to console myself that iam a very small boy when compared to the participants. But once in a blue moon, if I could answer a single quiz before they could, wow that day would be my most satisfied one!(a byline - remember that Gold Spot sponsor? - the "Zing Thing?").
Sunday Serials - a sequence of programs - Micky and Donald to start with. Kids these days have a dedicated cartoon channel and shock-surprisingly they become easily frustrated with some characters - "papa - pokemon is so boring, keep popeye on channel 9!". But at one time, Micky and Donald were the superstars of India.
In line of "famous five" you had Ek Do Teen Char, and then "Sherlock Homes". There was a scientific fiction also called "IndraDhanush".
Donno how many of you remember the Detective serials like "Karamchand", "Qile ka rahasya" "Honi Anhoni".with the kind of funds serials of today are being poured into, if they had been given to these serials, probably they would have been the icon of Indian serial history.
Two most popular serials that no one can forget were the Nukkad and Malgudi Days. Fun, but true, its the content and screenplay of these serials that made me to learn Hindi faster.
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We are in a very different world that what I told in the past few paragraphs. 10 years ahead, our childhood days would become an unbelievable history for kids of that time. "Are you kidding? were there times when you had to go near the TV and change the channel, uh.i mean without a remote?" - questions of this kind would be very normal.(guess this is ok, but it should not be like “WHAT? You used to go to schools without pistols? Weren’t you afraid?”)
but as I said about the ESQ, somewhere in my mind, it constantly says that we were more satisfied with the "limited recourses" that we had, than the present "look all around and Pick" Entertainment world.