IT'S DD TIME AGAIN!

durga pujo came and went this year without creating much of a ripple in Joan's world.shopping had been completed long ago,keeping in mind a lazy pre-pujo trip rather than the pujo itself.meeting friends during the festive days was an impossibility, what with most of them out of town.so the four days were reserved for some really quiet time spent at home, catching up on good ol' Doordarshan.the ironic part was that Joan planned to revisit Doordarshan on a DVD player.so she did, watching eight vcds filled with deliciously simple televised episodes of R.K. Narayan's 'MALGUDI DAYS'-simple indian life at its best!depicting an imaginary everyman's land where humour and pathos play hand in hand, a postman is as rich as an advocate is as rich as a schoolboy in matters of the heart,where wisdom comes from a life lived rather than places visited and books read, where sambhar-rice,chhach and nimbu ka aachar are good enough for a feast and Gross Domestic Happiness is of greater significance than Gross Domestic Product. if only globalisation did not bombard our lives..! how would it affect the average indian? gucci hobo bags in shopping malls would lack import or not register instant recognition and instead grandma's tales would continue to colour quiet nights.would it be all that undesirable?
times have changed. people have moved on. Doordarshan has given way, in the collective indian imagination, to dozens of private channels telecasting blingy tearjerkers, glitz and glamour.Joan hasn't changed much. in a quiet neighbourhood of kolkata she still yearns for HUMLOG, HONI-ANHONI,KATHA SAGAR, YEH JO HAI ZINDAGI and UDAAN.