Why you must have a cable T.V connection

I'm one of the few city bred kids in India who has had privelidge of having spent his childhood watching the state
run brodcasting network -Doordarshan .Thanks to my parent's concern about my education ....and "over education" , cable T.V has never seen the light of my drawing room in the 18 years I spent at home . This spared me from the disrtactions of cricket matches , pokemones and of course ...the likes of a la FTV... blah blah which had caught the fancy of every other friend of mine . Although the blog is critical of the network , the achievents of the same in the years of operation cannot be disregarded .
True to its name , Door-Darshan has reached out to most of the distant villages and in a way helped integrate the country . Weather reports, Krishi Darshan and the NCERT distance education program have surely been benificial to a large rural population .

I would often spend my time after school (3 p.m-4p.m ,before the sun went down , and the conditions were suitable for play in the ever burning Chennai ) in front of the only available channel on the idiot box . This along with the few odd hours I have spent in front of this 24 hour maddness run have been instrumental in defining the following perspectives ...


THE NEWS :

Easily the biggest misnomer . Never has the channel been on par with the hundreds of other channels that now occupy every inch of the spectrum . Since Door Darshan also owns a News channel ( which I hav never bothered to tune in to)
, the English news is only a fifteen minute ordeal . With very few fresh stories , its more a review of what happened the previous day .The only thing that might keep you listening is some gorgeous newsreader , who last only
a few days , before she's axed or roped in by another channel. The regional news ( at 7p.m and lasting half an hour ) , a la Podhigai and DD Malayalam ,covers the most unimportant of events and the most insignificant of statements of any ruling party member.From commisioning of public toilets by an MLA , to inaugration of statues , you can have them all.

However the channel has to be creditted for not relying on sensationalism to woo the TRPs , something which the other news channels have been very keen on , a fact reflected by the Arushi murder case (I don't think the DD people ever knew of it )



The Cricket match

I greatly admire Door Darshan for its success in telecating all of India's home matches and a few overseas match although I do not know the exact detials of the numerous court cases than have transpired . I think DD took the pain ,since its staff felt they did not have to sit through their boring telecast atleast when a match was going on.

To watch a match on DD is not all that free.The price- "Hindi commentry" of "some people" who I believe have not represented India in even Football. A mishit is termed a "badiya shot" , a full toss labeled a " badiya gend and " every player who gets beaten twice "an out of form " .And believe me , watching a cricket match on MUTE is not all that fun .
Post match analysis ,coined the Fourth Umpire tries to make a Mandira Bedi out of an ex women's team captain , and has the host trying his best to put in a Harsha Bhogle effect.With " on studio pitch analysis " and opinions and predictions that change at half time , its another way of telling the viewer to switch the T.V of till the players had their lunch . The best thing that ever happened on the show was when a phone in viewer denounced the program live , an the host tried his best to potray a faulty network effect , when the views were heard loud and clear even to the viewer .

And to top it all , DD seems to have forgotten the protocol of telecating ads only at the end of overs . A chat with the umpire ,a bat change ,and even a field change is interupted by the same ad that has been mercilesly played after every over since the start of the match.





The Weekend Movie :

Gone are the days when DD used to movies that you would have hardly heard of . The Friday and Saturday night movies are more or less recent movies ,although never true to the Blockbuster and Superhit tags that they are given.
The last movie I did watch went on for 4 hours , and the next time I watched the same , I realized I had been through 90 minutes of advertisements in my last "effort".Not just ads, you also have to go through prologues of DD's exclusive serials that you would never even dream of watching.Add to that the community welfare propogandas
"how to prevent Malaria", " how to protect yourself from Aids " "Education for all " " Immigration Coincil guidlines" and the wildest of bullshit , in the most nerve breaking compilation. All this when you were to be watching your favourite movie .