Of serials and childhood memories

In my childhood days, the serials Ramayana and Mahabharata were hot favorites among people of all ages, but mostly it affected the children and the older people. I can still remember the image of my Grandmother, sitting in front of the television set with palms joined, and whenever Krishna or Rama used to appear, she used to touch the palms to her forehead, muttering silent prayers. For me, the attraction was different; I used to enjoy the fights- specially the scenes where Arjuna or Rama used to throw an arrow, the arrow multiplied itself into a dozen or more, and killed the enemy soldiers ; in other instances, two arrows came face-to-face in midair, stayed still for a while, and one of them disappeared. The fights with mace (or Gada) became so popular that plastic counterparts of the weapon were available in the market, and playing with them became a passion for the children during that period.

In the Indian television history, those two serials were the most popular among the audience, and even now, I like to think about them in some nostalgic moments. But apart from these two, I remember other serials as well, which always occupied my "must view" list in those days.

When the Metro Channel (or DD2) started its broadcasting, it was only for one hour in the evening in the weekdays, and there, I used to watch Johnny Sokko and the Flying Robot and Street Hawk. I cannot recall the stories now, but what I can remember is the passion with which I used to swallow them.

The Doordarshan channel (DD1) broadcasted some nice serials, of which I liked Guniraam, Tenali Rama, Mungerilaal ke haseen sapne and Nukkad. Here again, I have forgotten the details of the storyline, but probably each of them used to tell one story every week, and in those days, serials were a weekly event, not on a daily basis with two repeat telecasts, as it is nowadays.

Alike mystery stories, I have a fascination for detective serials as well, and among them, my favorites were Byomkesh Bakshi (Rajit Kapoor was superb) and Tehkikat, where Vijay Anand acted in the role of detective Sam D'Souza while Saurabh Shukla was his sidekick. Another serial, which was telecasted probably on Sunday afternoons, was Bikram Aur Betaal, where Arun Govil was the king, as far as I can remember.

In Bengali, Tero Parbon was the pioneer, where Sabyasachi Chakraborty played the character of Gora. He has been one of my favorite actors since then. There was another serial, directed by Tapan Sinha, titled as Hutomer Naksha, which was of the mystery genre, starring Soumitra Chatterjee as a retired Colonel and Hutom, a young boy as his combined-hand. It was Hutom who used to solve the mysteries, with guidance from Soumitra. Apart from these, there was Adarsha Hindu Hotel, where Manoj Mitra played the role of Hajari thakur, and Sabitri Chatterjee was in one of the leading roles.

On Sunday mornings, there was a program called An expidition to the animal kingdom ,which was a pleasure to watch. Although I did not like cartoons that much, but I used to watch He-Man and later, Jungle Book.

None of the above-mentioned names are recent, all of them are 12-18 years old at least, but I still can remember them. The reason may be because they were a part of my childhood and boyhood, a part of my life which is full of sweet memories, memories which I can cherish in moments of solitude.