Condolence, DD Style

Life was pretty smooth during our childhood. Those were the golden days of Doordarshan(DD). Well, the world DD brings on pure nostalgia and takes me down the memory lane of those special childhood days. There were very limited source of entertainment that time. Just imagine the meaning of our life without the basic needs of internet, mobile phone and cable TV(or DTH). But people were still happy those days and the only source of entertainment they had, was DD. No doubt that some of the serials showcased by DD during the late 80's and early 90's, were really of very high quality. Some of my favorites were 'Karamchand, Dekh Bhai Dekh, Fatichar'. Now what to say about cricket? Well, the game continued to be as popular. In fact, IPL has successfully managed to exploit our sisters, mothers, saas and bahus as well, as far as love for the game is concerned. But I feel cricket is more like a side dish, these days. But during our childhood it was undoubtedly the main course for the vast majority.

One fine afternoon, I returned from school in a hurry, riding my bicycle. One day cricket match was going on between India vs West Indies. I rushed to the TV room and as I switched on the TV, I was surprised that instead of cricket, a sad tune of Shehnai was being played. A couple of men were playing the sadness with their dismal face. I calmly waited and after a few minutes, the shehnai turned into a sitar. 

'Oh! Shit, some famous personality might have passed away,' I wondered. I was actually true, a well known personality indeed died that day. I was very disappointed as I was sure that DD would telecast Shehnai/Sitar vadan for the entire day. People had to follow such condolences mainly only for the politicians. The impact was slightly tolerable if the expired politician was regional. But for national level politicians, people had to live with the Shehnai/Sitar sad tunes for almost a week. The importance of a politician was directly proportional to the number of days DD seized to telecast the regular programs.

'But why the hell DD stopped telecasting a one day cricket match? It's just a sport'

Well, cricket, particularly one day cricket was always considered as entertainment. But I remember DD always used to telecast test matches, irrespective of which politician died that day. The logic was very correct, test cricket is less entertaining and was considered more like a sport rather than entertainment.

Street Marketing

During my initial Bangalore days, one afternoon, I was walking on a busy street. I was in my formals; went for an interview that had gone really bad. All of a sudden a decent looking man approached me. He had a pleasant smile on his face. He was holding a brochure kind of thing. The picture of a bearded man in the brochure looked familiar to me. The man talked to me for a while. He was trying to convince me on something. It seemed he was a marketing guy of the very well known "Art of Living"

'What Art are you talking about, sir? At present I’m just struggling for a living. I am jobless and trying hard to get one,' I said to him.

'Oh! You are not working', the man responded and started to ignore me. 

'Is Art of Living, only for working people?' I asked.

With a charming smile the man disappeared into the crowd.

Some years later

I, my wife Anjali and my friend Sinha were walking on a busy Kormangala street, pretty close to Sinha’s house. Suddenly a smart looking guy blocked our way and handed over a brochure to Sinha, without saying anything and disappeared. Sinha had a look at the brochure and put it in his pocket. I was quite disappointed that the guy didn’t find a potential customer in me. Might be I looked more like a jobless fellow. I was confused that the guy even ignored Anjali. Ladies are by default potential customers and on top of that Anjali was quite well-dressed, well-groomed.

'What is it about, Sinha? I asked.

Sinha replied, ‘Nothing dude. Someone or the other would always give me something like this’

‘Wow! You look very wealthy. See how the guy neglected both me and Anjali,’ I commented and now, Anjali also started pulling Sinha’s leg. 

‘That is very true, Sinha, you look very wealthy,’ said Anjali and Sinha sighed. 

‘What is this about? Are there any offers? Show me the brochure,’ I asked.

‘Nothing dude, it’s not related to you guys,’ Sinha hesitated to show the brochure.

I and Anjali tried to have some fun, ‘It’s okay Sinha. We may not be as wealthy as you, but even we can afford to buy a few small things’

It continued for a few more minutes and then Sinha passed on the brochure to us. It seemed a new fitness center recently opened in that area. The brochure had many contents, including in bold letters ‘Lose 10 kg weight in just 2 months’

Well, the incident happened a few years ago. Now, both I and Anjali turned into potential customers for the fitness centers.