Televison

I was born in 1988 to a family in the Indian Navy. Colour TVs were just about making their way into Naval bases, cable networks still a long way off. Understandably, I remember little about the early years but my first lucid memory is of singing, “Washing powder Nirma, washing powder Nirma”.

My brother and I were ruled with military precision by my Drill Sergeant mother. Our lives were dictated by the clock. The routine is hard to forget after so many years. 


The truck would pick us up from school and drop us at home. We would spend an hour eating and then go out to play. 
The rule was to be home before 6 pm,when light fell and the street lamps were turned on. So focused would I be on my games of pretend, that I wouldn't notice the failing light until my brother, furious after looking for me for all of fifteen minutes, would find me to drag me home. We would then take a shower, pray and do our homework. Just as a meal ends with the very best part of it- desert, so would our day- we would all, my father, mother, bother and I sit down as a family to watch a few shows every night on Doordarshan.

For the summer we would travel to my grandfather’s house with Cable TV. My brother and I would sit glued to the TV all day long in awe of that Mecca of cartoons- Cartoon Network and yet, every evening we would watch a set of shows together as a family.Over the years the shows have changed from Buniyaad to The crystal Maze from the X-files to Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter. 

The cracks appeared as gradually as (and accompanying) adolescence. I was beginning to get as tall as my mother and she seemed less scary when I didn't have to crane my neck to look at her. I always had an answer to her questions and never found the time to wait for her answers to my, often rhetoric, questions. My father started sailing, my brother left to study and I no longer wanted to watch the same TV shows as my mother.


With inhuman patience, one that neither my father nor brother shared, my mother waited for this phase to pass. I had to leave home before this patience was rewarded. By this time we had probably all forgotten where we started from. 


With the years and distance coming between us, while each of us finds a way to our own lives, family TV time is an ill afforded luxury. It takes the funny voice of one of my nephews or nieces singing a television jingle I'm humming for me to realize we still remain connected in sharing a love for the illusive reality of the entertainment world.

I might be appalled by a lot that is passed off as entertainment, news or advertising today but my opinion of the media will always be coloured by its ability to bring people together and influence an emotion and action.
---
My brother in his wisdom gained from an extra 4 and a half years on this planet read this when it was first written and announced that I had confused fact with wishful thinking. I am of the opinion that he is more right than he realises but isn't that the beauty of memory- to allow a person to colour just a little bit outside the lines for a truthful representation of a perceived fact.