Dil Maange More!

Really, no exaggeration!

Byomkesh Bakshi, the new Bollywood movie I was told is worth a watch. It's a few weeks old isn't it, or is that months? Well, thats how much clued in I am currently to be honest! The last time I visited a movie theatre was in London, like 2.5 years ago. A movie who's climax had driven me nuts. Though my brain had been hinting at what could be the suspense, my heart had refused to accept that plausible explanation even after the director slammed me in the face with it. A ghost causing accidents in an Aamir Khan movie, it took me a few minutes to digest that story even after stepping out of the theatre! 

Enough about AK having let me down, it's an old story. Let me get to the point. So all that this movie (BB) did for me was remind me of a certain tv serial which went by the same title in those good old days of Doordarshan. The pre-cable era, the golden era filled with quality tv stuff. Tenali Rama, Kille ka Rahasya, Chitrahaar, Fauji, Indradhanush, Flop Show, Karamchand, Malgudi Days... I could go on and on. I know it's unfair to those series whom I haven't named, there are so many more worth mentioning.

That stuff was simple. The focus was merely the quality of the content. Children's shows were as much informative as they were entertaining back then. There was no need of a Shin Chan yelling in a shrill voice, for a kid to fulfill his daily dose of entertainment. There were no 24 hour cartoon networks, just a simple Tom and Jerry, a childish Laurel and Hardy. There was no Unreal Reality Tv, with the compulsion of featuring at least one contestant with a sad life story; the passion with which the shows were created was real. There was no overload of channels. In fact the only channel which was running, never even had a 24*7 telecast. And the question of fighting for the remote never arose.

After school hours, homework and play would be followed by devouring the tv stuff which we were allowed to watch as kids. Yes, allowed. A word that may sound strange to today's kids perhaps, but was an inherent word in our dictionary when growing up. Yet there were no complaints. (Or maybe a few :-)). And the end result was totally worth it. So say, it wasn't just the Sunday morning breakfast, but for us, the post breakfast TV session would be a family affair too. The family would sit down and relish stuff like Mahabharata, Chanakya right from the very start. If we'd be busy with something, we would hurriedly wind up the moment we'd hear the title song blaring from a neighbour's house. Fun times.

I had a friend who had a crush on Faster Fene. A kid in the building would be teased as Moughli, for roaming the passages in bare minimum clothes. One of my aunts would be compared to Rajni, the socially active protagonist of the serial with the same name. Friends would discuss what could possibly be the answer to the question posed by Vetaal to Vikram at the end of every nail-biting episode (yeah that was our definition of nail-biting at that age and in that era). Innocence well-preserved.

I'm sure each one of us who grew up in the 80s and early 90s has his/her own set of favourites among all those gems. Even our parents surely do. And no amount of jazzy entertainment or large scale extravaganza can replace the sweet memories associated with that simple childhood joy. 

The head knows those days arent coming back, but after all, the heart wants what it wants. Dil Maange More.

PS. What are your favourites? Your memories?