Rediscovering Lakh Lakh Chanderi…

For some strange unexplained reasons, there are certain memories that linger and haunt a person for ages. This is more the case with childhood memories, a old home, a forlorn beach, a rabid fight, there is just no limit to what part of childhood you will carry with you through out your life and why?

In my case, it is a song, that too a Marathi one. I must have been no older than 7 or 8 years at max, and somehow a song that I viewed on television way back then stuck with me for all these years. In those times, early-mid eighties, there was only a single channel in India, Doordarshan and color television was not yet available (apparently it was after the Asiad games but the cost was so prohibitively high that only a select Indians could afford it).

The programs that were run on Doordarshan were fairly staid, in fact there was a regional offshoot of Doordarshan, namely Mumbai Doordarshan that broadcasted regional shows; namely plays, news, serials in Marathi. And on prime time, that is 9 pm, the national broadcaster used to take over, so you would have serials, news bulletins et al in Hindi. Since, back then there was no choice except for Doordarshan, we all sat in rapt attention watching the programs even in Marathi and even if it did not make any sense to us. For instance, I recall, just before the the Batmya (news in Marathi) at 7.30 pm, there used to be this show called at Amchi Mati, Amchi Manase, it was basically a show that was targetted for the farmers, telling them how to take care of the cattle, when to sow the seeds, etc. Also, just before the news bulletin, there used to be this small caption of lost and misplaced people, Apan yana pahilat ka, where there would be photos of missing people and sketchy details about them.

On Saturdays, there used to be Marathi movies shown and on Sundays it was Hindi. Thus our schedule was pretty packed in that sense. To be honest, the little Marathi that I know and understand is not because I had it as a subject till the 8th standard, but because I was trying to laugh at all those gags in Arr..tch tch.. or trying to figure out the news in Batmya. Continue reading