Ode to my telly

TELEVISION

I've cribbed and cried watching my telly for long, The Ekta Kapoor serials, they're long and drawn My brother growls, says, "Why watch it then? Gimme the remote, my stupid behn."

A fight ensues, we're always good at that, My mother is smart, she knows about tact, She takes the remote and starts to surf, Her religion channel is a bore. Too much!

We arrive upon a consensus at last, When our telly screams, "Watch Star One fast." There's a laughter challenge hunt on air, It's a reality show, I'm afraid it blares.

But people from nowhere are becoming famous, Contenders of the show they've grown in status.

There's Raju Shrivastava, a small-town lad, With Bollywood heroes he's all set to act. A Ram Gopal film it is we're told, In a nutshell, his kismet's on a roll. Another one we hear is called Ehsaan,

In serials now he'll get a golden chance.

Star One is comic, mum notes with glee, But even elsewhere humour's the key. There's Shekhar Suman, the king of laughter, On Star News Pol Khol, politicians he'll slaughter.

With Instant Khichdee I weep in joy, But Zee shows are so dull, oh boy!

Now the channel promises to deliver, Kareena Kareena won't be hopeless as ever.

The serial, we're told, is being laid to rest, To make way for a show they'll test. It's the good 'ol Hum Paanch serial y'know, a comedy cracker that ran years ago.

There's more coming from the house of Zee, On Zee Smile there's something called Ghanta Zee.

A colleague once said, "Arun Jaitley made a comment On TV, he said, fun's at its best."

While I am a little too reluctant to believe, There may be those shows but I'm not at ease. Sometimes the humour is crass and sick, I hate to inform you, it's rather slapstick.

A mention of Indi Film Club is a must, Sundays on NDTV I find it too mast.

It's a programme for budding filmmakers, Who air short films, I'm sure they'll find takers. I watched two films called Memories and Thank You, With digicams I realised ideas could get translated too, Stories and concepts reeled in front of my eyes, Amateurish it may be, but their conviction was right. And then I saw John and Bipasha, On KBC II, they made their debut with the Badshah, They spoke and looked all posed and pretty, But beyond 25 lakh they failed to please.

Bips donated her share for a cause, "This is for PETA," John said with a pause.

Elsewhere, news channels were busy flashing, The grim reality of an earthquake, it was shattering. Wrapped in blankets we saw affected children, A disaster, experts said, it was in-the-making.

Celebrations, dancing and fun apart, The calamity was also a reality too stark. My telly showed me a lot in one month, From shows to serials to news channels I'd surfed.

So that was my update on all the TV last week, I can't say more, let's just end this piece.