Tuesday 18 November 2014

A Toilet In Your Living Room

This is no ordinary toilet that I’m talking about. You don’t visit this toilet at all. But it still exists in almost all households in India. It is usually in your drawing rooms. Sometimes, it is in your bedroom too. And I’m not talking about the attached bathroom you may have in your bedroom. This is something you have inside your room. Some are really fancy and expensive with all sorts of cool gadgets attached whereas some others are simple enough which get the job done. Either way, it is still used for the same purpose, a place where you could take a dump. Simple. It’s a shit hole. A latrine. A sandaas. A ghusalkhana. Whatever floats your boat.

Don’t take it literally. For those who couldn’t figure out what I’m talking about, I’m referring to the so called Idiot-Box! The television. A gadget that was invented by a great… Wait, let me Google… I don’t know, 3 names popped up, so let it be. The television was invented for a noble purpose of entertaining people. It fulfilled its destiny for many a years but it has been turned into a shit pot in recent times. A toilet where actors come and take a dump on their viewers through their shitty shows. The content has gone so bad that it almost feels like it would be better to smear someone else’s feces on our faces than watch their crappy shows.


The biggest problem is, that we’ve started enjoying them taking a dump on us and on our minds and on our brains and on our intellect and on our intelligence. We’ve gotten so used to the kind of content that is on TV these days that there does not exist any standard whatsoever of the quality of what comes on TV. We reach an orgasm when someone gets knocked out of Big Boss or someone comes back to life in some 13 yearlong never ending soap opera with daily episodes. We love it when we make ourselves a part of absurd nonsensical news shows that last for an hour and we enjoy every bit of the ads which show some movies in between them.

Even the person who was referred to as an ‘idiot’ when they named the TV an ‘idiot-box’ would feel more intelligent than Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking. We’ve managed to ensure that nothing of ‘good’ quality ever comes on TV ever again. While in one part of the world they are making some of the best TV shows ever created, we’re doing the exact opposite by creating, watching, and enjoying the worst of TV shows in the whole wide world ever!

The biggest problem is, it’s only getting worse.

I don’t seen an end to the streak of crappy reality shows, noisy news shows, 28 ads per hour on every channel, music channels with no music, never ending drama series, and other similar crap in the name of content. The only thing watchable on TV is probably some Football. Why I don’t include Cricket here is because firstly, I’m not interested in Cricket any longer, and even if I was, I wouldn’t have enjoyed watching it anymore because of the insane amount of branding done during a match. Every stupid ball is brought to you by some brand and every boundary is brought to you by 10 others. The screen is half filled by 60 different brands and, for heaven’s sake, there are ads in between balls as well! What has this world come to?

I dream of a day when we could have some good quality content on TV again which people could sit and enjoy. I’m not necessarily talking about stuff that stimulates you intellectually, even light hearted fun stuff is acceptable. But please let it be good. And not crap. We’ve had enough shit taken over us, it’s time we flush it all down for a new beginning. Oh TV lord if you can hear us, save us!

PS – If you are going to start an argument about ‘good’ being subjective, please go dig your nose and eat what comes out of it. 

2 comments:

  1. remember those tv shows from the 90s ? they were way better than the ones going on now. I often find myself watching Shrimaan Shrimaati etc on youtube

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    1. Exactly my point! The quality of shows on tv is pathetic now.

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