Analog Blues

Sometime back Pritish Nandy had written an article “The Pleasure of being a Bore”. I do not know whether I will qualify for that title holistically, but at least on one count I do – that is being impervious to a large extent to the inroads of the idiot box in daily life. There have been days on end when the television in our house has not been switched on or maybe just for ten minutes of news and thirty minutes of cartoon for the kid, and none of us have felt any bit lesser or heavier at the end of the day. And I do not watch cricket anymore !

Now that the four cities are agog with the digitization of TV transmission and the impending ban of the almost banal analog waves that were floating in the air like smog on a winter morning in Mumbai, and every square inch of print space available for advertising being devoted to the benefits of digitization of the air waves, even a potential bore like me could not resist to sit up and take notice.

A few months back also there was such a deadline but it was extended , maybe to accommodate guys like me. But this time looks like the noose is going to be tightened real hard.

So like a zombie rising from the dust with the sudden revelation that life is worth living again, I decided to get into the game of SD, HD, 1080i, 720p and other such mumbo-jumbo which will make your brain give up due to overwork in a short time. With a little help from semi-informed salesmen at the shop and some help from the omnipresent Google, I decided to finally say good bye to my old idiot box which was sitting at the corner of my living room like an over-aged toad, too tired to croak but too lethargic to move.

Now having brought the horse home , we need to worry about the food , so to speak. With the cablewallah promising darkness from November irrespective of the thousand diyas of Diwali, decision needs to be taken of the kind of airwaves that I need to welcome into my home.

It takes one click of the mouse or one phone call today to get the information at your finger tips , both solicited and unsolicited variety. So in a day we hope to have a plethora of channels which if I just flick one every second after waking up, the sun would start setting by the time I finish. And all in total clarity….

It is another matter that my anathema of the idiot box is not because of the hazy analog signals which were making me wonder if cataract has visited earlier than usual, but because I find very few programs which are worth watching.

So now it will be ten minutes of news where I can see every wart and mole on the guy's face when he vehemently denies his involvement in the scam and thirty minutes of Tom and Jerry in HD.

Maybe it is time there is a scheme where unviewed TV viewing hours can be traded like timeshare holidays ? Some enterprising guy in our country should think of this !