15 years
It's been more than 15 years since that day.
15 years.
It was the 15 th of February , 2003. Saturday.
It was our first weekend in Hyderabad. Just shifted to a new city . With a new job.
In another part of the world, at Centurion ( South Africa), the cricket World Cup was on. It was the big weekend game. India vs Australia.
This being the first weekend of moving to a new city , and having just moved into a house from a hotel, we ( my wife Ipsita and me) decided to get the basics of the house going.
We started with getting a bed, a mattress , utensils, a sofa set, a table.
The furniture and the kitchen stuff done, we went to an electronics shop - at that time, one of the largest in the city - a shop called JD Electronics , located in the Abids area.
There were two items on the 'to buy' list -
A refrigerator and a TV.
The refrigerator was finalised - LG. while this very important decision was being taken by the wife (as she evaluated various specifications, sizes and colours of the fridge ) , I concentrated on the TVs that were on display at the store. Not for doing a similar evaluation, but for the India vs Australia live telecast. India batted first. Everyone was excited. Anticipation was high.
A Tendulkar century was expected. Ganguly and Tendulkar opened. Brett Lee was fast and accurate. He got Ganguly to nick to Gilchrist . One down. In walks Sehwag. Tendulkar is at the other end. Sehwag hits a four. Tendulkar is striking it well. However, in his very next over, Lee gets Sehwag. Nicked to Gilchrist. In comes Rahul Dravid. He prods around for more than 20 balls for one run. And then he goes, bowled by Gillespie.
My wife says the fridge is final. Let's quickly do the TV.
The eager salesman showed several brands which were in vogue that time . I was keen to take my team at each brand stop.
He first showed BPL. Yuvraj Singh goes for a duck. Plumb to McGrath.
We move on to Samsung. As I was testing the remote control, Mohammed Kaif went . He scored 1 off 16 balls.
We moved to the next brand. The salesman was talking about the excellent picture quality of the LG TV. Tendulkar hits a beautiful four - between cover and extra cover . The voice quality is also very pleasing .
I look at Ipsita asking about the LG tv. She nods. Let's buy it, she tells me.
The salesman in the meantime was talking to another person in the shop. I ask him to come for a minute .
He is coming towards us.
It's the 28 th over .
The salesman is walking towards us.
Gillespie is running in to bowl to Tendulkar.
The salesman reaches.
Gillespie delivers the ball.
The salesman asks me if there is any query regarding any features of the LG TV.
Tendulkar is wrapped on the pads. He is in front of middle and leg.
Australia appeal. Tendulkar is gone. India are 6 down. The score is just 78.
I feel supremely disappointed . Like millions of cricket fans.
We decide not to buy the TV that day. Just the fridge, we tell the salesman.
Then the day goes. And somehow, a couple of weeks more pass by because we could not find the time to go to buy a TV.
The cricket World Cup ends ( India did very well to make it to the finals ; lose in the finals to Australia ) .
The next weekend there is time. We can go and buy a TV today, we feel.
However, I feel if we can live through a cricket World Cup without a TV, there cannot be anything bigger in the world for which a TV might be needed. Ipsita agrees.
We decide to give it a pass.
We Try to experiment a life without a TV.
And from that serendipitous moment when India became 78 for 6, to now ( 2018 March) , it's more than 15 years. And we are living without a TV.
Since it just doesn't exist, we don't miss it. I don't even know how to operate it.
Sometimes, this results in embarrassing situations - I was travelling and in a pretty nice hotel. I decide to watch the TV. However, I just couldn't get to the listing of channels because the remote control was so unfamiliar and complicated. I called housekeeping , and when the boy came, I asked him to help me get the TV started. He looked at me and gave me a look. And in a second, got it done.
The only time in these fifteen years I have felt it might have been good to have a TV was on the morning after the Bombay terror attacks, on the 27 th of November 2008.
I was blissfully unaware of the Bombay attacks and had a morning flight from Hyderabad to Bombay around 8 AM. It was an air india flight . Around 6 in the morning , a friend called to say there was a huge terror attack in bombay and I might consider cancelling my trip.
I shrugged him off and called the Airline at the Hyderabad airport. It was then that I looked up the internet to get a sense of the enormity of the attack and the magnitude of the disaster that had stuck. I rushed to my neighbours house to see the TV. It was a very tense atmosphere .
Coming back to TV, other than that one incident , it has never been missed.
I am a big sports fan, and there are times I really want to watch some sport. Occasionally, If the craving is too intense, I watch it on the internet.
Our son Jaadoo is a big football fan too. He does not know what it is to have a TV at home. So he too, somehow manages on those few occasions he really feels like, on the internet .
TV, the 15 years without you have been good. Looking forward to the next 15.
