Khansa Saleem
When people ask me about the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about my childhood,it’s watching endless cartoons.From Pogo to Cartoon network and then moving onto shows like Wipeout,fear factor,MasterChef,Antm and Takashi’s Castle.My childhood was spend sitting too close to the tv on the mosaic floor of my tharavad, while I occasionally ran off to the kitchen to grab some snacks or go outside to play with the mud.I suppose that’s how most of the children have spent their childhood.The only exciting thing about our lives was waiting for the school bell to ring so we could go back home and watch the evening shows and during weekends watch the cartoons all day.No doubt my near blindness is due to sitting too close to the television although one can’t blame me because hey! my favourite superhero is bashing up the villain and I need to get the full view with all the nearness i can get.Televison for many is quite different.For my grandmother it was Indian serials.For my parents it’s tv news channels that I as kid detested since they would wanna watch it when I was already eagerly wanting watch cartoons.Se would only choose to watch television when their personal devices were on charge or not beside them or on weekends after a long week of shifts and wanting to watch the the weekend surprise movie screenings.I’m pretty sure that it was through television that many of us developed language, creativity,dreams and no doubt it was sort of an agency of socialisation.I do think that nowadays with streaming sites, mobile phones and social media uproar that many of the mass are straying away from watching the television, atleast the old channels and the nostalgic enthusiasm in sitting around the television box with your family,all eagerly watching a hot news or a serial which is showing an exaggerated version of an Indian family drama.For many,movies are watched at the theatre or through sites like Netflix,Amazon prime etc.. and I think it’s only folks like my retired grandfather who still watches news on the telly,homemakers watching soaps after a long tiring day of housework and children who still find it in themselves to watch old cartoons such as chota bheem,Scooby doo,Tom and Jerry etc…
Television will always have a dear place iny heart for it is a sort of a homage to the child in me whose happiness adamantly depended on how much cartoons I’ve watched.
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