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.