The black and white television

 It was almost a milestone in the village history when Father brought home a small 18 inch, black and white ET&T TV set. There were just three or four TV sets in the entire village. The unfortunate bearers of these TV sets were under real assault on Sundays for the weekly movies because people seamlessly barged in despite all protests. Once the room was full and the door shut, the rest tried to catch the action by hearing dialogues from outside.

A kind TV owner thought of larger good and put his coveted item in the street for a public screening. The entire street got jammed to a long extent with the kind of crowd that you see at Rajiv Chowk Metro Station in Delhi presently. Then someone threw a pebble that landed dangerously close to the precious item. The owner shouted profanities that would surpass all the nasty jeers of all the villains in the film industry. The show went off.

The TV owners turned very guarded and suspicious after this incident. It was then Father decided to get us our little black and white television set. Doordarshan was kind enough to give us Wednesday chitrahar and Sunday movie. An antenna looked like a crown of the house. A house with television antenna was held in high esteem. Thank god, the village was monkeyless during those days. The frequency was slippery. Little elements of wind and clouds had the capacity to spoil all entertainment. Holding the antenna in an ideal position was a big challenge, almost an art in fact.

Then the path-breaking serial Ramayan started. By this time there were about two dozen television sets in the village. So the pressure per TV set had eased a bit. But the electricity would go off, leaving people in a puzzle if life was really livable anymore. I remember it was a much anticipated episode, maybe Lord Rama’s marriage with Mata Sita. The entire village looked up to celebrate the marriage. A day before the episode the electricity transformer gave sparks and got blown out. The village went into mourning. But there was a glimmer of hope.

Father had stealthily smuggled in a rechargeable battery with enough voltage to play the tiny television set. The news spread throughout the village. Our house was attacked. Never ever I will see so many people in a small house. The people got  onto whatever perch they could manage. I saw heads almost touching the ceiling. Potatoes were crushed. Some of our old brass utensils still bear the marks of that assault. The house would have burst out that day.

An old woman who could not squeeze in went lamenting through the street. She knew where Grandfather spent his days smoking hookah in a gathering of elders in a chaupal. ‘You smoke hookah here, but when you will go home you will walk over its rubble,’ she howled and hollered. Grandfather was around eighty-five at that time. He ran on his rickety legs to save his house. Then he gave the all-time best performance of his life in both words and action. He threw bricks, clods, sticks, fists, kicks amply accompanied with suitable tongue-lashing to clear off the door and continued throwing whatever came in his hands. Heavy brass utensils came very handy as weapons. His old-age burst certainly made it a war scene. People must have thought he was haunted by Ravan’s spirit that day. But full marks to Grandfather’s spirit. He created a stampede and forced the crowd to run away from the scene. Our small humble house bore the look as if a few bulls had fought inside it. And there he stood, fuming, but proud to have saved the house. ‘If you people go like this, you will find yourself on the open road one day,’ he admonished. That day Father had to be on the back-foot and Grandfather gave him a big load of advisory, admonishing hearing.