Yes. Satellite receivers. Or whatever they are.
Every respectable neighbourhood worthy of its air, has dishes that sprout. Forget affluent residential premises.
Village houses sport them. Slums sport them. It is mainstream ! Really.
Many years ago, we used to have skeleton like antenna in the terrace. And that used to get to the desultory colour TV programs like Krishi Darshan and Chitrahaar.
But the most prominent amongst them all was the English News. Watched promptly, every night at 9.00 PM. More for picking up the language than for understanding what was with the country !
The newer generation would perhaps not know the likes of Neethi Ravindran, Rini Simon, Preet.K.S. Bedi, Geetanjali Iyer, Tejeshwar Sigh, Bhaskar Bhattacharjee and Minu…. ( i am unable to recall all of them ) read the news. With impeccable pronunciation ( at least that’s how it seemed to me back then) and neat rendering ! The signature tune of the 9 0 clock news seems still new in my mind !
The modern days, are different. You have smart technology, and ‘news anchors’ who for some reason have to have a laptop in front of them. (Sometimes i wonder if they play solitaire of some arbid game over there). What else do you do when you have breaking news like ‘Billi Bolta hai’ ( a cat is speaking ) is a scroll !! Sigh !
And with OB vans, and microphones passed on to people who seem keen to scale a quick height by making a Kanchenjunga from their backyard mud… there are bound to be some intensely comical scenes.
Like the young ‘journalist’ who thrusts the microphone just under the nose of the wife of a Sri Lankan cricketer. (A cricketer who has been injured in the terrorist attack in Pakistan). And posts the question, ‘ so were you praying for your husbands safety when you heard of the attack ?’
The lady was polite and answered in the affirmative. I mean, i could have said something like ‘Not really. I was actually praying for the pizza to arrive on time’ !
But of course, these are not Neethi Ravindran or Rini Simon. And todays language education happens through 160 characters. Of a text message.
So, todays news is about cats, dogs, politicians, suits, big screens, thumping voices and entertainment. And there is never ending repeat telecasts.
So there. Go on. Watch the news. While i think of Ms. Ravindran !