Chapter 1
The Black-and-White Box
The black-and-white television was not just an appliance. It was a member of the family, a storyteller, a miracle-maker, and sometimes, a stubborn creature that demanded we climb to the roof and wrestle with the antenna before it agreed to show us anything more than snow. If you were a child in the 1980s, you’ll remember the peculiar sound of it—the click of the knob as it came to life, the faint buzz as the cathode ray tube hummed awake, and then, slowly, the Doordarshan logo emerging on the screen like the opening of a curtain on a grand stage.
For families like ours, that television wasn’t bought; it was celebrated into the household. The day it arrived was nothing short of a festival. No one in our lane had ever seen anything like it in person, though we had all heard legends of relatives in bigger towns who owned one. My father brought it home one Saturday evening on the back of a cycle rickshaw, wrapped in thick brown paper, as though it were some fragile relic of another civilization. The whole neighbourhood followed us as though a marriage procession was taking place. Children skipped, old men adjusted their dhotis to walk faster, and women whispered to each other: “Unke ghar TV aaya hai!”
Inside the living room, the television occupied the most prestigious spot—right on top of the wooden showcase where until now our proudest possessions had been a plastic flower vase, two glass swans with necks entwined, and a faded calendar of Lord Krishna. Suddenly, all those objects looked small and ordinary compared to this box of magic. It was heavy, squarish, and black, with two stubborn knobs on the right-hand side—one for volume and the other for channels, though the second one was more decorative than functional, since there was only one channel to turn to.
The first evening we switched it on, we were greeted not by cinema or serials, but by the national anthem. The entire family stood up immediately, some with hands on their hearts, others looking awkward but unwilling to disobey the gravity of the moment. Even the neighbours who had barged in stood respectfully, their eyes shining with pride, as though we ourselves had become ambassadors of India’s technological progress.
That first night, the room was a carnival. Our modest hall was filled with neighbours sitting on charpais, stools, and even the floor, each bringing something along—homemade namkeen, a few boiled peanuts, glasses of Rasna diluted carefully so it would stretch for everyone. The smell of sweat, incense sticks, and fried pakoras mingled in the small space, but no one minded. All eyes were glued to the screen as it displayed the news: a serious-faced anchor reading in impeccable Hindi, without a smile, without a pause, as though the weight of the entire nation rested on his words.
“Yeh Doordarshan hai,” he began, and a hush fell across the room. Even the babies seemed to quiet down.
Of course, the children in the audience weren’t interested in politics or weather reports. We were waiting for the cartoons, the Sunday movies, the programmes that would sprinkle colour—well, metaphorically, since the screen was still in shades of grey—into our dull afternoons. But in that moment, none of us complained. It was enough that pictures moved inside that magical box.
The Furniture of Togetherness
The placement of the TV changed the geography of the house. Earlier, the most important piece of furniture was the dining table—or rather, in many homes like ours, the kitchen floor mat where the family ate together. But once the television arrived, everything else surrendered. The chairs were pulled, cushions dragged, stools borrowed, and people arranged themselves in concentric circles around the glowing box.
Dinner time shifted too. If the evening serial was scheduled at 8:30, then by 8:25 everyone had finished their food in record speed. Plates were stacked in the sink, and half-eaten rotis abandoned, all in the rush to not miss the opening song of Hum Log or Buniyaad. My father, who normally lectured us on wasting food, made an exception on those nights. Even he couldn’t resist the charm of the screen.
Neighbours had an unspoken right over our television. It wasn’t just ours; it was the neighbourhood’s. At least five families would gather every Sunday morning for Ramayan, filling every inch of the room until even the windows had heads poking in. Nobody minded the crowd. In fact, it added to the sense of occasion. Children shared the same stool, aunties sat shoulder-to-shoulder, and sometimes uncles leaned against the doorframe with their arms crossed, pretending not to care too much but secretly more addicted than the rest of us.
The real fun was when the power went out. In small towns, electricity had a mind of its own. Just when the hero was about to reveal his face or the villain was laughing maniacally, the screen would go blank. A collective groan erupted. Someone would rush to light a candle, another would curse the electricity board, and one mischievous boy would clap his hands and say, “Abhi toh sab andhere mein Mahabharat shuru ho gaya!” Laughter followed, but secretly, everyone prayed the power would return before the episode ended.
The Antenna Wars
The antenna was the most controversial family member. Fixed on the rooftop, it was a slender rod with wings like a confused insect, and it was always at the mercy of the wind. Picture quality depended entirely on which direction it faced. If the actor’s face appeared ghostly, someone had to run up the ladder and twist the antenna until the people below shouted in chorus:
“Thoda left! Aur left! Bas, bas! Nahi, abhi right karo! Haan, haan—wahin rok do!”
Half the fun of watching television was this rooftop drama. Sometimes entire cricket matches were watched with one cousin stationed permanently on the terrace, adjusting the antenna every five minutes while others screamed instructions from below. It was a collective sport, almost like a ritual of sacrifice—the one who missed the show on screen to ensure the rest saw it clearly.
During heavy rains, the antenna gave up altogether. The screen dissolved into snow, and the sound turned into a haunting hiss. But instead of disappointment, this too became a memory. We’d sit around, munching on bhuttas, and mimic the actors, pretending what might be happening on screen. Even in absence, the TV had given us something to laugh about.
The Magic of the Doordarshan Logo
No child of that era can forget the hypnotic swirl of the Doordarshan logo. It appeared before every programme, that circular dance of two shapes chasing each other, accompanied by the peculiar music—half cosmic, half mechanical, entirely unforgettable. For us, it was the drumroll before the circus, the bell before the classroom, the trumpet before the king’s entry.
Sometimes we imitated it during games, running in circles, humming the tune until an elder yelled, “Bas karo, ab sir dukh raha hai!” But they too hummed it unconsciously while doing chores. It was in the air we breathed. That sound meant something good was about to begin.
Humour in Monochrome
Black-and-white may sound dull to today’s children, but in our world, it was enough to spark endless debates. Was the hero’s shirt blue or green? Was the heroine’s sari red or yellow? We invented our own colours, argued fiercely, and then agreed to disagree. Sometimes, two children would run to their school art teacher to ask what colour a particular flower usually was, just so they could win the argument later.
When friends visited who owned colour TVs, they bragged mercilessly: “Woh song waali sari toh lal thi, tumhe toh dikh hi nahi raha tha.” We listened in awe, but deep down, we weren’t jealous. Our black-and-white screen was not just technology; it was a shared heartbeat.
The TV as a Timekeeper
Television also became our unofficial calendar. We didn’t say, “Sunday is coming.” We said, “Ramayan ka din aane wala hai.” We didn’t measure evenings in hours but in programmes: Chitrahaar, then Krishi Darshan, then the news. The schedule of Doordarshan dictated the schedule of our lives.
Parents planned dinner according to serials, children finished homework quickly so they could watch cartoons, and even marriages were postponed to not clash with the Sunday movie. Life bent itself around that single glowing screen.
Reflections
Looking back, that black-and-white television was far more than entertainment. It was togetherness in a box. It made strangers neighbours, and neighbours family. It turned silence into laughter, evenings into rituals, and ordinary days into events worth remembering.
There was something profoundly democratic about it too. Rich or poor, all of us saw the same programmes, the same ads, the same news. There was no remote to flip channels, no choice to wander into different worlds. For a while, the whole nation was tuned into one story. And in that shared gaze, we became one people.
Today, when everyone has personal screens glowing in isolation—mobiles, laptops, tablets—I sometimes ache for that crowded room filled with sweaty neighbours, the smell of pakoras, the chorus of shouts to fix the antenna, and the stubborn black box that refused to show more than one channel but gave us more joy than a thousand streaming platforms ever could.
The black-and-white box in the living room was not just a piece of furniture. It was the theatre of our childhood, the shrine of our evenings, and the keeper of our simplest, happiest memories.
