57 years of Doordarshan- a journey DD

I knew it as Doordarshan but now it is known as DD. There are various channels of DD at present, DDNational, DDsports, DDNews, DDIndia and DDBharati. 
It has been a journey of 57 years for doordarshan. I don’t know who coined this name for our National TV, but it was perfect choice for national TV.

Often we used to call it as Sanjay ka kaliyugi avatar. lat; dk dfy;qxh vorkjA

egkHkkjr esa lat; dh nwj n`’fV dk o.kZu vk;k gSA

@DD_National twitter handle of Doordarshan twitted these photographs

Then through the years we started liking DD. But we hated it also so much so that its name was coined as #dkoV ds fy, [ksn gS  
In those days it used to happen on almost all Sunday movies that this caption was shown in middle of scenes. 
That time all of us used to curse the doordarshan. Sometimes during telecast of cricket match if this caption came, all students cried loudly.

Luckily, we carried over that period and passed on to a new chapter when there was a Metro channel came. It was for two hour special channel on Doordarshan. Then in 1982 the INSAT thing happened and we got a National Telecast in a real sense. Our late Prime Minister Smt Indira Gandhi ji asked the Capt. Rakesh Sharma when he was in the spacecraft above in the sky, that how does our India looks like? He without any hesitation replied that lkjs tgkaW ls vPNk Sare Jahan se Accha. To this reply Smt Indira Gandhi also laughed. All this happened in front of our eyes. Whole nation enjoyed. Asian, National games-Bhartiyam, CHOGM, NAM, SAARC all started happening on the screen in our houses. Nothing of that sort ever happened before. All this happened in COLORs, earlier all we saw was in black and white screen.

click to see the video

In 1982 TV came to my house. There was this program on Immortal melodies Immortal Men. All stalwarts came on screen, Rajkumari ji, Noorjahan came to India and sang vokt ns dgka gS rw nqfu;ka rsjh tokWa gS Great Naushad sahib conducted the song. As it seems, that time stood still.

Earlier when there was only one TV in whole colony, all children used to hang on to the window of that house. Those who were close to that family were lucky and saw the TV from inside of the room. But I was a weak child, I got the chance to hang in the window iron bars and sometimes I was not even given that opportunity also by the mighty boys of our colony.

Those were bad times for me. I used to think why this TV is not in my house? But then how could we ask such questions to our parents? We did not have tape recorder, not even a camera? But yes we had a Radio. It was a big one named as PIE. It was from UK I think? My father was in Indian Navy. He was in the team that brought INS Vikrant to India. That time my father might have bought that PIE Radio, I think?

Later we used to walk for 1 km from type one in IIT Kanpur campus to type two to watch Sunday movie in house of Mathurs. I am gratefull to Mathur family. They did permit us to watch TV sitting in their drawing room. It was a great thing on their part in those days. Yes it was a great emotional thing. I had been scolded many times in some houses, as to not to touch those sofa covers. While watching TV, in ecstasy sometimes I forgot my poor existence and might have put my hand on sofa cover that gave wrinkles. That was enough to get a scolding from the lady of house. It was quite OK for me. It was not a big price to pay in lieu of watching that idiot box?? Isn’t it? 

But time passed on From 1976 to 1982. But in this journey i came to know lot of great souls of India. Our Bharat Ratna a great soul, a Divine Singer Smt MSSubbulakhsmi one such persona. Smt Rukmini Devi Arundale, Kamala Devi Chatopadhyay, Popul Jayakar, Kanak Rele Mrinalini Sarabhai, Ranjobati Chaki Sarkar, Jhaveri Sisters etc all became know to me

Even in 1982 many households did not own a TV. 
In villages, where i visited during summer and winter vacations not many had even a Transistor. Few enthusiastic youths and few landlords had Transistors. They had nice colorfull covers, nicely woven by the ladies of households. The cricket match was the prime objective for transistors among young. News/Samachar and some film songs were the attraction for rich people. 
Later even rickshaw pullers also had transistors nicely tied on to their handles or specially designed hangers on cycle or rickshaws. In bus also i saw good arrangements were made to hang Transistors. Transistor was must in dowry in those times.

Even during the time of Reshma ji, she did not know much about Radio. After lots of reluctance she was allowed to sing on Radio.

But When in 1982 TV came to our house our sensibilities changed. Prior to that we were depending on Dharmayug, Hindustan, Illustrated weekly, Kadambini, Navneet

Sarita, chandamama, Amar chitra katha, parag, chandan or nandan? gudiya, for various needs of Knowledge, entertainment etc. 
Later i also had Vama, Femina, Frontline, Reader Digest and few other magazines for my reading. 

I used to read books of Gaura Pant who was famous as Shivani ji, Acharya Chatursen, Premchand, AmritLal Nagar etc.
Newspapers were also there- Hindustan Times, Times of India, Aajtak, Dainik Jagran. Smt Shanta Sarebjit Singh, Smt Anees Jung were writers whom i read in these news paper.

Why that was called as idiot Box?
Through Doordarshan really i got darshan of far off places. I got to see films in Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati, Rajasthani, Marathi, Manipuri, Bengali, Punjabi, Assamese, Telugu, Bhojpuri, Oriya,  i doubt whether there was any film in Kashmiri? back then. Till 1990 i kept watching doordarshan at my home.
I saw Sagar Sangamam, Sindhu Bhairavi, Agni Nakshatram, But i liked the most film Sankarabharnam. 
Then there was my fav star a super star most creative person i have ever seen after V Shantaram ji was NTR NT Rama Rao. 
All of his films shown on Doordarhsan were superb. Daanveer Karna, where he wore most artistic Shoes, and walking in the compound of pandava, he placed foot on the floor. The camera NTR used in that film was most innovative. Sita Rama Raju. where he played role of the fighter. Then there are many such films where NTR played role of Krishna, Vishnu etc. All films were artistically superb, Each Frame of his films were like paintings. Just as most of the films of V Shantaram ji were like a Painted canvas. He was a creator of art. I don't remember how many films were shown on DD in Telugu, but most of them i saw were of NTR. 
Then there were Tamil films, Shivaji Ganeshan, and MGR etc. The film in which Shivaji played a mythological? role where he was fighting with his own son. But he did not know that fact. later somewhere during fight or after that he was told that fact.
Then there was a film in which heroine was staying in her sister's house and during absence of her sister she went to her bedroom. But in Night the hero came and unforgettable thing happened. Hero thought that lady was his wife.
Then in one film the heroine is a district collector and the hero is a simple govt employee. The films of Padmini, the gem of Travancore sisters. this dance sequence where i think MGR was there, and went to see the dance of heroine in disguise, as if nobody could see them. There were so many films. few were of Vaijayantimala in Tamil also. Padmini played a role of a dancer.
There was this film in which i saw Jayaprada and sridevi together. (am i correct?)
The famous film in which Kamal Hassan worked with Jayaprada. He had some dance scenes.
Bombay i saw in Malayalam. But later it was also made in Hindi.

 

With the journey of Doordarshan i came to know about many stalwarts and GEMs of Indian Music. The Gauhar Jaan was the star of her times. She was a Super star celebrity of her times compared to present times celebrity, she was more highly paid and commercially successful.
Nati Binodini was one another star theatre personality in Kolkatta.

There were few good programs on our rich tradition of Music also. Smt Naina Devi ji was the permanent feature in many such programs on Doordarshan. There were many such vidushis. Like Sidheswari Devi, Girja Devi, Rasoolan Bai, Asgari Bai, later Begum Akhtar became the star attraction on Doordarshan also.                             There was Shobha Gurtu, Usha Uthup though apposite genre of music but both captivated audiences through their music, Doordarshan telecasted their programs.

Sunday and Saturday were full of events. Illa Arun brought one program on singing and acting. She was good at both. Neena Gupta also made some programs. Shweta Shetty(menon?) one pop star.
But most captivating were films on sundays. I was glued to screen on these days. Often i had watch without sound in late midnight programs. As everybody used to sleep thus i had to see silent screen. Later my younger brother attached a device through which i could listen from ear plugs.
I was hooked to Meena Kumari, Rekha, Waheeda Rehman Asha Parekh, Mumtaz, most amazing was Helen ji. She was a superb dancer. Vaijayanti Mala Bali, Nutan, were of from another great class.
Pakeezah, Umrao Jaan remained my favourite films.

All through school days i danced on this song- Tahre Rahiyo Banke Yaar Re of film Pakeezah. My class mates used to tell me that when they heard song inhi logon ne or this song of pakeezah on their radio they remembered me and my dance. that was connection of radio with me???

In primary school one song which was famous about me was Najar lagi raja tore bangle par. Smt Nalini Jayawant had danced i think on this song. Everytime this song came of radio people told me that they remembered me?? what a connection?