On Nation One Channel !!

“Neighbor’s envy, owner’s pride”!! sounds familiar isn't it??It was the tagline of the famous television brand of the early 80s & 90s in India.

Onida was trending on Twitter a few weeks ago but it wasn't because the brand made any announcement. It was a trip down memory lane for 90s kids, after one user triggered a storm of nostalgia by sharing Onida's famous 'devil' ad on the social network. Although the world has moved on to binge-watching series on Netflix and Amazon Prime, TV time was often family time in the 90s and so we still reminisce not just about the shows but also the ads we saw back then. And one advertisement that almost every 90s kid can recall is the Onida TV commercial, featuring a ‘devil' Ashish Chaudhary.?

The 80s indeed was an era of nostalgia. An era wherein we’d begun to stare at the TV set and Doordarshan (DD), which in those days were one and the same thing. Government-run DD could produce a Krishi Darshan, but entertainment? Nah. So the TV set was respectfully draped in a table cloth and admired as an object of desire. Early 80s DD’s sponsored programme brought television to life for the first time: we laughed on Fridays with "Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi", we cried along with mothers Tuesdays with "Buniyaad", The whole family worshipped the box when Ramanand Sagar started with his epics "Ramayan". Devotion turned into euphoria when Arun Govil was worshipped along with Sita maa" (Deepika)

The golden age of Indian television bound us together every evening: one family, one nation, one channel, one culture.

The TV Boom saw many names. Beltek, Salora, Crown, Uptron, Nelco Blue Dimond, Ketron. Leading among them was Dyanora TV which had a bigger market share in South India. Launched in 1975, the brand belonged to the Dynavision Company, which was a joint venture between Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation and an entrepreneur Obul Reddy.?

Fast forward we crossed the millennium with Jennifer Lopez shaking her butt that got the Y2K crisis resolved. Rapid satellite and cable penetration into the heart of India by the late ’90s, saw TV fiction move towards urban dramas. Maa Sita got married to an industrialist and Bhagwan Ram joined politics. Tulsi and Parvati along with their mother-in-laws (Saas) symbolised “Indian values” and shot to the top of the viewership charts. Was it a cultural backlash.?

Balaji Television replaced the outdated BR Films and Cathode ray gave up to LEDs. Television moved from living rooms into the privacy of the bedroom and shrunk into iPads and Mobile.

With over 800 Channels in the Indian space, everyone now who is seated in front of the idiot box aspires to become a crorepati or an Indian indol and everyone with a smartphone has become a critique or a sharebroker.

Televisions are no more a family affair.?They might look to have the best of everything, but they have lost a lot along the way. It has united the entire world into one global audience but the more technology has changed and spread, the more it has splintered us: today, no two people necessarily watch the same content in the same room. That one nation theory of the ’80s is a million mutinies now. Now, it’s just another electronic toy.

Lets try and avoid being the envious neighbour, and tame the devil. Life will be much simpler.?