DD Days

I often use the words "DD days" to refer to days when "I don't have time" was not part of my vocab. There was enough time to do everything. DD had shows that, today, would be considered a drab...a sub standard program. The one hour dramas on Tuesdays, Chitrahaar on Wednesdays were watched with such enthusiasm that are reserved only for Word Cup finals and Super Bowl these days. I even watched programs like Ulavarum Olikkadhir, which showed clips of various functions, rituals held in temples around the city. And the king of all programs was Oliyum Oliyum on Fridays. Even Sunday evening movie came a distant second if there was a popularity contest between the programs.

Sunday would occasionally win the race if there was a "Malarum Ninaivugal" that afternoon. Otherwise, Friday was the clear winner. Even though most of us didn't know any Hindi then, we still watched the Saturday evening movie. Of course, the announcer would announce the story in Tamil before the start of the movie. Talking about announcers, VSRaghavan and Gemini Ganesan did the same before "Hum Log" began. Thus one more Hindi program was added to our list of "must see" programs. Chitramala was watched on Mondays with the hope that at least one Tamil song would be aired. In spite of all these programs, we were able to do homework, go outside to play, listen to the neighbors' gossip etc. And we never used the words I-don't-have-time.

Now there is no dearth of channels and there are many good programs but there is no time to follow any of them faithfully like I followed DD. Today as I sat on the couch rocking my 7-week old daughter, I was listening to PooMalaye by Ilayaraaja. Enjoying the song without my mind working in the background making a to-do list was new. And it felt good...took me back to DD days. When the next song played, I closed my eyes and was picturing Murali doing that ugly dance in front of Kuyili and singing "Aatthaadi paavadai..". It was like watching Oliyum Oliyum on DD. And then it was Karthik's turn to do an ugly dance in the song "Pani vizhum malar vanam". The steps had a certain amount of humor. All this was before Prabhu Deva broke into the scene with "Dol dappi ma" and raised the bar. Now even Surya is dancing decently. Next it was Nizhalgal Ravi with "Poongadhavey" followed by Chandrasekar's "Madai Thirandhu". Oliyum Oliyum with all your favorite songs!!! Aha, blissful.