Old is Gold

This article of mine is dedicated to Doordarshan, a lone channel, which was viewed by millions of people in India till I was half my age. With due to respect to all the other channels which have come up since the monopoly of Doordarshan was ostracized, I have no second thought in saying, going down memory lane, that it was the one which had the programmes, capable of being described as the ones with infotainment value in them.

It was televising all the programmes which catered to the interests of all the age groups and also it  had the versatility to attract people of different societies.  Atleast,  I can vouch it outright as far as the programmes in Tamil language were concerned. These were some of the programmes and the readers themselves can ascertain the truth in my wordings.

“Vayalum Vaazhvum”      -           For the development of agriculture

“Kanbom Karpom”                        -           For the learning of the students

Öliyum Oliiyum”                 -           For Film songs lovers

Ülavarum Olikathir”          -           For aged people who love seeing temples

“Seithigal”                            -           Unbiased news programme

“Tv Serials”                          -           Serials with 12 episodes max having no capacity of

                                                         contaminating the minds of house wives.

“Thiral Thuli”                       -           An half an hour programme with excerpts from

tamil films.

“Sindhika Oru Nodi”         -           Quiz programmes

And the list would go on. It was the only channel, infact, which had the courtesy to allot time to its viewers to review the programmes on a weekly basis via a programme, perfectly named as “ Ethiroli”, which in English means “echo”. In other words, this programme carried the voices of the viewers which stood as a reflection of the programmes which were aired in the immediate previous week, then. No other modern day channel is doing it as far as I know, presently.

Not to mention, for all cricket lovers like me, never it had let us down when important matches were being played. I am sure all comedy lovers in India had first seen Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Dieter Hallervorden in Doordarshan only. I am thankful to Doordarshan for its efforts which had brought us home memorable works like Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle book” and R.K.Narayan’s “Swamy and his friends”. We also saw arguably the best Quiz Master ever, “Siddharth Basu” in Doordarshan only.

Even now, if you are a viewer of Tamil Channel called Podhigai, you would be awe struck if you were to see a phenomenal Sports Quiz, anchored by Dr.Sumanth Raman on every Saturdays at 10.10 pm. I would boldly say this was the best Quiz Show on Sports, shown in India.

In short, it had no such programmes which had spoiled its viewers. On the other hand, it had served as a perfect medium which had the right blend of information and entertainment.

But, now with the advent of many satellite channels, DD has lost many of its viewers and has stayed way back in the race of entertainment. It is really silly to note that most of us give importance to annoying things like mega serials which even jolt the harmony, prevailing in many of the houses, if the house members are not matured enough to believe whatever untoward things that they are viewing are only someone’s imagination and have no representation in their real life.

I hope that the attitudes of our people change soon and they start to realize what would be good for them instead of becoming a prey to cheap entertainment.

.