Anand Halve,
Chlorophyll
His 50th birthday party is over. Doordarshan — DD to friends — leans back on sofa to relax. He’d just picked up the TV remote when his effervescent 17-year-old niece ZeeZee comes and parks herself beside him.

ZeeZee: DD chachu! Keep that away...tell me na, did you have TV when you were young?
DD: Yes of course ZeeZee...I was 23 and colour TV had just come in time for the 1982 Asian Games

ZeeZee: But did you have MTV?
DD:  Well, we certainly had music shows like Chitrahaar, Rangoli and Superhit Muqabala long before MJ was black or white.

ZeeZee: And serials?
DD:  Oh yes. There was this hugely popular serial about two warring families, with hundreds of characters and feuds and betrayal and jealousy...
ZeeZee: You mean there was Kyonki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi even then?

DD:  No darling, it was a programme called Mahabharat.
ZeeZee: Really? And did it go on forever like KSBKBT?
DD:  No ZeeZee, even epics end. The never-ending one was called Buniyaad.
ZeeZee: And were there child actors like those in Balika Vadhu?

DD:  Programmes with kids those days were actually meant for children, like Vikram Aur Betaal ... I think Dadisaa could have played the witch in it with perfection.
ZeeZee: Don’t be mean chachu! And did you have star announcers like Barkha Dutt and Sagarika Ghose?

DD:  Yes dear, we had Salma Sultan, the dimpled queen of TV news. I recall the telecast of a conversation between the first Indian in space, squadron leader Rakesh Sharma, and Indira Gandhi. When she asked him how India looked from the space he said, Saare Jahan Se Achha. 
ZeeZee: Really?

DD:  Yes, even momentous events were softly reported in news. No one had any intention of breaking it.
“And now, may I please have that remote, ZeeZee? I want to watch the DVD of Gulzar’s Ghalib that was telecast on Doordarshan.”

Anuradha Sengupta,
Features editor, CNBC-TV18
If you were a child like I was in the 80s, then Doordarshan was your window to the world. And even though that window could distort the view, the state broadcaster had huge limitations. I am nostalgic about some things it compelled us to do.

I still remember my grandfather expecting complete silence at 9 pm, because we had to watch the national news! Those were the days when news readers Rini Simon, Tajeshwar Singh, Komal G B Singh, Neethi Ravindran and the cheerful, yet bumbling Minu, had day jobs, and the news was the government’s views. Of course, then came Prannoy Roy with The World This Week and showed us how it could really be done.

I remember Chimanrao, Shvetambari, Wade Chirebandi — some of the serials and theatre adaptations on the regional service — which imbibed in us the knowledge, respect and affection for the Marathi language, its literature and the culture. To all fascist and violent regional parties — guys, this is an easier and more effective way to protect the ‘Marathi manoos’ than victimising vulnerable newcomers. The regional, subtitled movies on Sunday afternoons brought to fore the different languages and cultures that make India.
When was the last time you saw a film in another language other than Hindi or English?
In 1983, on my birthday, I remember the indescribable and inexplicable joy of seeing ‘live’ the Indian cricket team, led by Kapil Dev, win the Prudential World Cup — giving India one of its biggest achievements in sports.

If Yakub Sayyed’s Sunday slapstick made me grimace, Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi made me sparkle with its wit, Kavita Chaudhary’s Udaan gave wings to my ambitions and Hot Tracks, the weekly compilation of international music videos, made me think I was cool. Yeah! I was naïve.

I remember wanting to speak with the clipped-accent that quizmaster Siddharth Basu used and waiting every Sunday to catch the charming Ashutosh Gowarikar play the teacher in Chitra Palekar’s equally charming adaptation of Little Women.

If Hum Log became an addiction, Malgudi Days gave us Swami and an incredible theme track by T S Vaidyanathan, which if heard once, could never be forgotten.

I remember squadron leader Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian in space. I remember how the world suddenly turned colour with the 1982 Asian Games. I remember the funeral of Indira Gandhi, the optimism and confidence of Rajiv Gandhi and then less than a decade later, another state funeral and the baptism by fire of the next generation of Gandhis.

Doordarshan, with all its flaws, helped create the audio-visual context to who I am today. Pity, it didn’t stay relevant to me and I still miss it and those simple times.

Omkar Sane,
Writer, producer, and author of the book Welcome To Advertising, Now Get Lost
Doordarshan was the reality before the onomatopoeic Doooor-darshan became a joke one cracked when he ran out of any other. Staying in Mumbai, it seems like a different life, though. It still remains a reality for most, a fact we urbanites forget as conveniently as the train ticket that the WTs (without tickets) claim to have forgotten when the TC (ticket checker) catches them.

DD existed in a very interesting time. (For me, it was a time when I could roam naked without being hurled stones at). It played at a time when life was a series of coincidences, not a list of chores. DD was the only thing that got me and my friends to wrap up a cricket match and run home to watch the Giant Robot. DD was the one thing that introduced me to music from the goras on its hourly block. DD was the only time we didn’t fight to change channels (not because there was nothing else to watch, but since it was a time without remotes).

DD made afternoons something to look forward to. DD also gave me a chance to understand that Indian women, especially neighbours, could talk about anything in the world, or in this context, on DD. DD inculcated a sense of manners as we learned to have dinner without making a sound as it coincided with the only news bulletin of the day. DD is also what I lost my father to as he would be always immersed in the dialogue between Krishna, played by the then-underpaid Nitish Bharadwaj, and Arjun.

Well, DD was DD. The only problem is it was.

Anand Krishnan,
Account director,
MediaVest Worldwide, India
There is something unique about this generation of Indians born in the 70s or early 80s. We’ve all heard of change being the only constant in life. However, the amount of change that this privileged lot of the 70s have witnessed is enormous and I would like to raise one for all of us belonging to this class for having survived and continue to survive this constant metamorphosis.

For the sheer inability to think of a better word, I’d like to call this the ‘treadmill’ generation — continuously having to run to merely stay in the same place.
Almost all of us were born into households that had no telephone, hadn’t heard of a computer, and wouldn’t have imagined in our wildest dreams about the phenomenon called the Internet.

This treadmill generation was also largely born into households with no TV, graduating slowly to a black & white TV set and then to a colour set, watching fictional shows on Doordarshan before slowly “progressing” to watch shows based on “reality” on newer, more aggressive channels.

Staying on with DD for a bit, here lies a little piece of tragedy of our times. Now with more than 400 channels to watch, thousands of shows to choose from, I struggle to remember 10 shows that I’ve watched across different channels in the last 10 years.

However, I still remember Steve & Venus circling the space in their Fireball XL5 or the legendary Giant Robot sacrificing himself for the greater good of the mankind on the good old DD. Most of us remember our routine on Sunday mornings — watching Star Trek while having our morning tea and breakfast. Comedy was also served by way of Didi’s

Comedy Show or Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi. The sobbing mother wasn’t exactly ignored either as Hum Log and Buniyaad went right up to the alley. Karamchand, The World This Week, Yes Minister, Chitrahaar, Chhayageet, He-Man, Spiderman, Kille Ka Rahasya are some of the shows that are etched into my memory. Ramayana and Mahabharata are the two biggest TV shows till date. If there is one thing that made me laugh about DD, it was their coverage of cricket matches. It was rare that one got to see what really went on with the catch. Brands that advertised back then were few and were restricted to before and after the shows. The advertisements became a part of the daily entertainment.

Enter the 90s and just like video killed the radio, the advent of satellite TV killed DD. Byomkesh Bakshi, another quality detective serial, was the last of the shows I remember watching on DD. Certain innocence was lost as we embraced white cables and bade farewell to those roof-top antennas. Even as I reminisce today on the good old days, today’s frenetic pace reminds me that there is no time for emotions, to slow down, to look back… On the year marking 50 years of Doordarshan, I thank DD for the memories, for the good times and the imperfections that constantly reminded us that we’re still humans.

Vinay Kanchan
Independent strategic and ideation
consultant, and the author of
The Madness Starts at 9
“Less is more”, is an immortal wisdom that the legendary architect Mies Van Der Rohe has given us. These simple words perhaps capture the best of the DD experience, albeit in retrospect, because they speak of a period when television viewing had actually began and ended. All our entertainment needs were at one destination. DD was truly the one-stop shop for everything. Families sat together and shared dinner over a common soap (opera).

If the classics like Tamas, Yeh Joh Hain Zindagi, Hum Log and Buniyaad were really landmark or did they enjoy the benefit of not having an alternative is, however, an interesting question. But what is undeniable is the fact that they had families transfixed in a manner seldom seen since then. It was a phase when news was limited to short 10-15 minute capsules and that restriction possibly had clarifying perspective on what constituted critical issues.

The DD era was a time when even commercials preceding major programmes seemed to intrigue rather than interrupt. There were also the ‘classic DD quirks’ that we now look back at with amused nostalgia, like the irritatingly random moment when the ‘sorry for the interruption’ board was flashed. My favourite memory (now) of that happening was when Maradonna was embarking on a solo run during a world cup quarterfinal. Remember newsreaders being candidly caught on camera swatting flies.

Or how when rain interrupted cricket matches, it became an opportunity to watch ‘Telematch’, a wonderfully imaginative concept, infinitely more viewable than the droning monotone of experts trying to infuse excitement with over-analysis, as in replete in such situations today.  Fifty years on, for most Indians fortunate to witness the transition from the scarce to the excessive in terms of television experience, DD still does inspire some fond memories.

Ramanujam Sridhar,
CEO, Brand-comm, and the author of 
Googly: Branding on Indian Turf
Doordarshan to me is Chitrahaar, Oliyum Oliyum, the Sunday feature film, Rangoli, Buniyaad, a loop of 23 commercials in one go (the commercials that were better than the programmes) and the colour bar that you hoped would end sometime.

I had some of my greatest TV moments on Doordarshan — India winning the world cup in 1983, the Republic Day parades and Rangoli on Sunday mornings. On the rare days when my son was awake, he would watch with a wide eyed wonder at my interest in the dull tripe [in his eyes] that was being dished out. Whenever a black and white song appeared, his eyes lit up and he would shout “daddy’s favourite song.” Yes black & white were daddy’s favourite colours.

Yet, today I hardly watch Doordarshan as I have many choices like millions of others in India. Doordarshan was a part of my impressionable past. I looked forward to watching it and had many happy moments in front of my first colour TV. I do not want those memories to go away, so I never watch Doordarshan these days.

Titus Upputuru,
Executive creative director,
Dentsu Marcom
Those were the times when children’s laughter would ring in the parks. Kids would pile up seven marble stones and play pittoo, but not before their hands piled up for choosing the pugai or the ‘den’ — the person who would go first to hit the stones with a tennis ball.

The pugai ceremony brought dirty little soiled hands on top of each other before they went up in the air, only to come down to reveal a flower with an assortment of white, pink, yellow and brown petals. A few attempts later, the lone white palm or the pink hand was selected. Thak! A yellow tennis ball would hit the minar and everyone would run to escape from the den. This would be the daily routine for every kid till the clock struck 6.

No sooner they would pack up their game and rush back home to perform another ritual. They would lift the white-laced cloth, slide open two small wooden doors and press down a small metallic handle-button. They would move back a few inches, sit crossed-legged on the naked floor and stare at the four-legged wonder— a wooden box with four long, thin and curvy legs. As soon as the black and grey bars popped up on the screen accompanied by a shrieking sharp electronic sound, mamma, pappa and the grandmother would settle down on the sofa with laced arms. Soon the black and grey bars would be replaced by a simple digital clock and the countdown would begin — 10, 9, 8, 7,6, 5...

The excitement was palpable as knees would bend, spines would straighten and bodies would bent forward. And as the clock showed zero, a magical tune would begin with an animation that is still the most poetic one till date. Two inverted comma marks would turn round and round a sphere until they become small and embraced the sphere in a tight, motherly hug. The letters ‘Doordarshan’ appeared on the sphere and then the Ranga Rang programme would begin. Mukta came with the Saptahiki. Salma Sultan, with a bulbous rose in her hair, would hardly open her mouth while reading the news. Spiderman would jump across buildings.

Captain Spock would disappear inside elevators. A khaadi-clad gentleman wished krishi bhaiyon ko namaskar. Somewhere under the trees ek gilahari would run helter-skelter, followed by anek gilahariyan. Phir kya hua didi? Shilpa char chaand laga jaati hai, Goldspot aur Emaaaaami hamein gayak kalaakar bana dete the. Tabassum would laugh and phul khil jaate the gulshan gulshan. Tall Rekha and gentleman Ashok Kumar hoisted the tri-colour flag in Chitrahaar on Wednesdays and Hema Malini appeared for the first time outside the 75 mm screen with Indra Dhanush.

Badki, Nanhe and Lalloo would fight and unke do number kat jaate the before finally the dinner was prepared at 5:45 PM on Sundays. Dal ka tadka was between 7:30 and 7:45 PM, during the interval of a feature film. Those were the times of innocence. Those were the time when life was more beautiful. Those were the times when hum log were more hum than firang.

Arijit Ray,
EVP & head, Mudra Mumbai
TV was synonymous with DD till the early 90s. For all of us born in the other side of the 90s, DD was the supreme evening entertainment for many year. Notwithstanding the lack of repertoire seen today and how it fared vis-a-vis the stars of the world, DD had a role to play in our formative years. Buniyaad and Hum Log were not as snazzy as the current serials but it glued the entire family. World This Week was probably one of the best current affairs round-up (comparable to the best even now) and who can forget the articulate and absolutely class act presenter Siddharth Basu on the Quiz Time.

How do we forget probably one of the best clutch of newscast on TV— the deep baritone of Tejeshwar Singh, the beautiful Mrinalini, Rini Simon, Minu, all epitomised the fine quality news presentation, probably better then the best today. DD also brought to life one of the most enduring visual and audio refrain through the ‘Mile Sur Mera Tumhara’ exposition. Where else could have we watched Kapil pull off a blinder to get Viv Richards dismissed or Sandhu’s wild swingers had it not been for DD. Many of Gavaskar’s centuries or Silken Azhar’s debut centuries came to our drawing rooms — courtesy DD.

For all of us who have grown up adoring cricket and the cricketers, the 1985 WSC cup in Australia was the redefining moment as far as sports coverage is concerned. Indians braved the time zone barrier and got up at 4 am to watch Sunny Gavaskar marshall his resources with his black Panama (which he wore in that series). What a finale it was with Ravi Shastri doing the winning lap with his team in his spanking new Audi. It was DD that made all this available. Let’s hope the next 50 years will see DD coming of the age.

Dheeraj Sinha,
Chief strategy officer, Bates 141 India
In the era of single channel, Doordarshan was equal to television and thereby the biggest unifier. I remember Doordarshan for its ability to bring people and conversations together. The small screen brought together large families as mothers finished their kitchen work and mother-in-laws kept aside their grouses for that 30-minute slot. Thursday mornings in school were animated discussions around the songs that were played the previous night in Chitrahaar — a programme on Bollywood songs which had no more than a 15-minute slot on Wednesdays.

Sunday evenings were such a giveaway with not a single soul outside, almost everyone was glued to the weekly Bollywood movie. The good thing was that all of us watched the same stuff and therefore there was a lot to talk about. The bad thing was that there was really very little pure entertainment stuff. Doordarshan’s programming seemed to reflect the government’s socio-political agenda. I remember when we had just bought the TV, we all sat down to watch Krishi Darshan and tried really hard to make sense of it as that was the only programme in the evening slot everyday.

Doordarshan, therefore, also reminds me of our days of ‘rationed entertainment’. It gave us measured weekly doses and left us wanting for more. In the daily news they forgot to edit even a bit from the footage of Rajiv Gandhi while in the weekly movie they ruthlessly censored even the scenes where the flowers met. However, if not for Doordarshan, I would have never known the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata in such great detail, though I still wonder why the arrow took so long to travel from one side of the screen to the other.

I remember Doordarshan for the catchy jingle — Washing Powder Nirma —and the dialogues of Dabur Lal Dant Manjan — Raju tumhaare daant to motiyon jaise chamak rahe hain — and of course the family planning ads — matki kyon phooti, Raadha kyon roothi, kyonki dono hi kachche hain! All this much before I even joined advertising.