It was a quiet evening at home and i was watching TV with my wife and parents.We were sharing our memories of my school days with my wife.We bought a TV quite later than many in our neighbourhood.My mom was recollecting the days when i used to run to our family friend's house on a Sunday morning to watch Disney adventures and Ramayana and later for Mahabaratha also.I used to hang in the window grill of our neighbour to get a glimpse of the TV program.Sometimes ,they were kind enough to keep the window open and at times ,they used to slam it on our face.:-( May be for this reason,Cartoon Network is always a fascinating one for me even now.I know the value of watching it.;-)
I have watched so many films till date .Many of them never lived up to their hype.But,my running on the road for watching Disney adventures never disappointed me.Uncle Scrooge(Mr McD),Launchpad or Donald Duck always entertained me to the fullest.It was fun watching it even in the dubbed Hindi version.
The day we bought TV,it was one hell of a celebration at home.My granny was totally against buying a TV ,the reason i do not understand even today.So,my dad had to drop her at my periyappa's house for sometime.(I remember her yelling "Achichooooo!! idhu enga vandhudhu?? " looking at our pet TV.)I still remember every single moment of that Saturday.I even remember the catalog of that Bush TV that my dad brought with the TV.It was so shiny and colourful and had a Rugby player's photo with various colour adjustments explained with it.I had saved it for a few years.
We were initially thinking of buying a B&W TV.But,thanks to my dad and thanks to that salesman who persuaded my dad ,dad brought a lovely colour TV which was a pleasant surprise for us.
Setting up the TV was not as easy as it is these days.The setting up of antenna costed at least half of the TV's price.There was a huge truck at our doorstep.The TV was brought in first and there was this 20 ft long steel pipe and 2 sets of antenna arrays,one with 10 ft long and the other 5 ft.(Our village was a coastal one and these antennas really posted a life threat of falling on the head to the passer-bys when there was cyclonic winds.) The bigger array was for the telecast from Chennai,which is 250 km away from my place.The other smaller array was for the Kodaikanal relay station.There were 2 signal boosters(UMS antenna boosters,i hope this flashes one's mind) for each set of arrays.Also,there was a separate tuner at the TV table.One had to tune it every time to get a picture.It took a whole day for the mechanic to set up the antenna.He tuned the TV to some setting that we got some kind of 'image thing'.We thought it was over and we were ready to enjoy the TV at our own home.Then came the trouble.
One of my dad's colleagues somehow sniffed that we bought a TV and came home the same evening.He came and saw the TV and asked my dad whether he could tune it better.Dad said yes and there started the trouble.Our self proclaimed TV specialist(who also happened to be my physical education teacher at school!!) started flexing his muscles with the TV for more than an hour and by the time he finished, or rather got tired of things,there were grains and only grains in TV and nothing else.
We all concluded that he messed up with the TV.Though we knew that the signals will be really weak if it travels 200 odd kms.We could not accept it anyways.We were at the mercy of wind to watch the TV and it hardly showered any mercy on us.
I remember one day they were showing 'Salangai Oli' in the Tamil channel and we were all set to watch such a rare good movie from Tamil channel.Surprisingly,the signal was so crystal clear.We settled down in front of the TV and the movie titles were on.Once Kamalhasan appeared on the screen ...blip!! oh no!! the power went off.Damn it !! the whole crowd was cursing the EB for an hour .Finally when the power came ,Kamal was dead in the movie.This is one of the disappointments i could hardly forget.This movie is up in one or the other channel every second week.But ,that moment will never come back.