The TB6 Era

We've grown up without any internet, computers or video games. On the Sunday’s we used to play cricket match and we literally played at each and every corner of our hometown and with  every possible kid in town, right from rubber ball to leather deuce ball. Everything was perfectly fine, but that time late teenagers were deprived of some basic entertainment. Most of them had no other options, except for those Sunday morning shows and after experiencing few shows, everyone felt little cheap and didn't like to continue further. The pathetic situation was not only limited to the young adults, but also to the elders as well. I think the middle aged people got some sort of consolation in the form of Friday late night movies on Doordarshan.  The censor board must had been little generous that time, as I can recollect few glimpses of the Friday night movies. But those stuffs will definitely be considered as peanuts by today's generation. 

After the introduction of cable television, guys tried their luck on some programs like Santa Barbara, MTV Grind, etc, but soon it got boring. Few people had the luxury to keep VCR at home and they rented video cassettes whenever they wanted. Sometimes grown up kids used to rent VCR on special occasions like “Saraswati Pooja”, as the Pooja is specially for students, so parents usually didn't argue much if their kids stayed out of home, even during the night for the Pooja preparation and celebration. Guys usually used to rent VCR along with 5 or 6 cassettes for 24 hours. The list usually included one Bruce Lee kind of movie, one Hollywood action movie, 2 Bollywood blockbusters and 2 entertaining movies for the night. But thanks to the electricity department, few of the movies always remained unseen. 

Now in  those dry days, there came an Avatar in the form of “TB6” channel to enliven not only the late teenagers, but also the middle-aged, as well as the older people. The channel was of Russian origin and was broadcast-ed by cable operator in many areas across India, for almost over half a decade. The channel had given immense entertainment and spread love and happiness among the common man and beyond any doubt must have contributed a lot to India’s population boost.

TB6’s main attraction was Playboy branded movies on Saturday nights. In our locality the cable operators broadcast-ed it very late and people there could enjoy the magnificent channel just for couple of years, before the government decided to ban it. Although the channel was live only after midnight, but it had enormous viewership. TB6 had an intoxicating effect on many of us, as it was the only source for the kind of entertainment we looked for those days. I knew about TB6 much before I had actually watched it. The channel was telecast-ed in BRPL Township much earlier. I was able to “Darshan” it very late, only when it started to broadcast in our locality.

During those days, we usually used to play cricket match with one team or the other on Sundays. Earlier we used to start our match by 9 AM, but later, as few of our seniors became so much addicted to Saturday late night TB6, we could have started our match only after 10 AM. Most of us knew about TB6 and about the Saturday night playboy, but it was extremely difficult for us to have had watched it late night. Few of our friends were extremely lucky, as they used to sleep in the TV room itself. Michael was one such lucky fella and he never used to miss the Saturday late night erotica. Quite often he used to narrate us the exotic stories he used to watch. Padu was so excited, that on few occasions, he secretly used to go to Michael’s house in the middle of the night, to experience the Saturday night sensual magic.