Don't get me wrong.
I may not be as huge a fan of books as some of my more stiff-lipped friends who love invoking Arundhati Roy and sometimes obscure south-Indian authors just to sound smart, but I do enjoy picking up autobiographies, run-of-the-mill college type comedies (aka 5.someone types), a few action thrillers and - of late - some political ones, every now and then.
However, if you ever stepped into my current dwelling, you would realise that there can be two possible consequences of reading too many books in the kind of "scene" there is: A low power, orangey-yellowey, depressing little night light.
Consequence 1: I go half-blind
and 2: I kill myself.
So in order to avoid both (more so for No.2 I guess) I pestered my folks to finance a TV. And finance they did. Coercion, thy name in my book is whining...
Enter a Phillips 21".
I will refrain from saying too much about the cable connection. Sufficeth to say, Consequence No 1 (see above) has a chance of befalling me yet.
So to talk about the actual TV viewing...
I'd been desperate to catch some EPL action and lo and behold, the first thing I see on ESPN is the EPL highlights show, with Manu's match against Wigan (a 5-0 thrashing to get my grin going). Having filled up on EPL, topped with a healthy dose of SportsCenter, I began my second favourite pastime on TV, channel surfing. Even though the set has a lag time from the moment you press the +/- sign to when it actually changes, wherin the audio stops half a second before change, surfing on it is quite enjoyable. Not least if I end up on a boring saas-bahu show. There is nothing more satisfying than cutting off audio for a woman just about to embark on a marathon of emotional dialogues, not to mention the dramatic soundtrack with pointless extreme close-up zoom-ins and zoom-outs.
However, the icing on the cake was this tele-shopping type sales pitch I saw on some random 24 hour news channel (and you wonder where all the breaking news ideas come from???)
The sales person was a "real" sadhu, complete with braided hair, and through elaborate gestures, he explained how the
SHIV SHAKTHI KAVACH could eliminate all bad influences in your life; bad neighbours, somebody who wanted to cause you harm, swine flu, aids and other horrifying elements. All you had to do was BUY the Kavach and wear it. And in the true spirit of Teleshopping, a free gift was available to the first 100 or so callers: a gold sticker to hang on your house's doorstep to ward off all evil.
Thank you TV industry for making possible rib-crushing laughter without the need for THC!
