Serendipity

Yesterday night , we (myself and two of my friends) were getting bored ourselves to death
as the cable connection was not working , and there  was no movie worth watching left in
laptop or movie hall. Then suddenly one friend suggested to watch 'The sword of Tipu
Sultan', which he has downloaded recently. Though I was apprehensive initially , then
thought it is better than doing nothing.

So we three started watching it from beginning , where tipu's grandfather  (fateh mohammad)
has just won a war. We watched probably 3-4 episodes  upto where fateh mohammad is
killed by treachery of his enemy.

Listening to pure urdu words like guftaguu (talk),marhabaa (well-done), dariyaaft (enquiry),
yalGaar (assault/attack) , thanks to embeded subtitles in english , we could understand the
dialogues.

This chance occurence of watching the old serial , took me in memory  lane to the good old
days. There was a time when we used to impatiently wait for those wonderful saturday
evenings and sunday mornings for watching fun filled serials in dd like dekh bhai dekh,
alif laila, bharat ek khoj,chandrakanta (I remember Yaku Singh most) ,The sword of Tipu
Sultan , chitrahaar,Jungle Book and of course who  can forget Ramayan, Mahabharat.
Half of the village used to gather in  my grandfather's house to watchramayan , mohabharat.
I rememeber some  of the old people used to put hands together in obeisance whenever
Sri Rama or Sri Krishna character appearED in that old onida black & white model.

Even those ads for 'Nirma super' , 'vicco' , 'amul' , 'natraj phir sixer' 'vicks' , 'lizzat pappad'
were in a separate league of their own. The omnipresent Doordarshan Signature Montage ,
Vande Mataram ,  mile suramera tumaraha were part of our life

Who can forget the starting songs of 'mogli ' , 'Jangle jangle pata  chala hai , chadi pehne
ke phul khila hai , and the lyrics of the title song…“Tana na aa tana naanaa aa tana naanaa
naaa'.

I miss those days  before the arrival of  “cable” network.