[Reader-list] The way it was: The television boycott (Bapsi Sidhwa)

[Harsh Kapoor]

Daily Times (Lahore)
July 23, 2002 Main News

The way it was: The television boycott
Bapsi Sidhwa

Once the decision was taken there was an immediate sense of relief, 
and recalling all the chatter and discussions we had kept aloof from, 
there was now a sense of urgency to catch up with all that we had 
missed
It was the early autumn of 1965 and black-and-white television was 
scheduled to make its debut in Pakistan in November. My husband 
Noshir, who was prone to taking an occasional 'stand', determined 
that we would not buy a television set; we were not to be turned into 
Zombies by the 'idiot box'.
In those days I had few views of my own, and I went along with his.
Lahore was abuzz with the news. Speculation on the miracle of 
television in our midst was as gratifying as the thought of our 
inclusion in a more up-to-date and advanced world. But our family, 
with quiet disdain, ignored the pressure building up around us. The 
subtle hints insinuated into the conversation by our servants were 
also ignored and we remained determinedly TV-less.
A few years later, India, too, set up its own nascent television 
stations, and to everyone's amazement the Amritsar television channel 
suddenly became available for viewing in Lahore. This shouldn't have 
surprised us so much, considering Amritsar is barely 20 miles from 
Lahore as television waves travel, though for all its physical 
proximity to us, Amritsar could as well have been in Alaska - so 
little communication was there between the two neighboring cities 
because of travel restrictions imposed by both governments. Now, as 
Indian news and documentaries from Amritsar began to appear on our TV 
screens, this chasm was unexpectedly bridged.
Although we were as addicted to news and politics as all our friends 
- after all politics is still a staple of our evenings' entertainment 
and chatter even in Houston - Noshir and I maintained our boycott. I 
have to admit it took me a while to appreciate the true nature of the 
concern that had caused him to take his 'stand'. Being a compulsive 
talker - a genetic construct that has earned the Parsees in Bombay 
the title kagra-khao or crow-eaters, I suspect Noshir feared that TV 
would infringe on the time he and our friend's spent in talk and 
argument. In fact he said as much: TV would mark the end of civilized 
dispute and turn his evening's companions into non-combative dummies. 
He wasn't that wrong. In the years since, the addition of cable and 
videos have intruded somewhat on the gossip and grouching sessions 
among the women, and the gossip and political harangues among the men.
Being a fresh medium of entertainment, the taboos that attached to 
Pakistani cinema did not attach to Pakistani television. Where 
Pakistani film actresses were drawn exclusively from among the 
nautch-girls at the Heera Mandi, television attracted educated and 
talented women from good families. In fact the infusion of this fresh 
talent, accompanied by an innovative and creative approach, provided 
Pakistan television with a distinct edge over Indian TV presentation 
and dramas for many years to come.
Indian TV, however, had one advantage over Pakistan television. It 
had reams and reams of Indian films not seen by the Pakistani public. 
So Indian TV compensated for its many earlier shortcomings by 
launching an avalanche of Indian movies. The film that started it all 
for the Lahoris was the famed Pakiza. Starring Meena Kumari and Raj 
Kumar, featuring a slew of songs by Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad 
Rafi, the film had acquired so much renown that some Lahoris had gone 
through the trouble of procuring Indian visas to travel to Amritsar 
to see it.
The rumor that Amritsar television was to screen Pakiza on a 
particular Thursday zipped through the 7 million Lahorites like an 
electric charge. Nothing was talked about for days. Its songs, 
already madly popular, could be heard blaring from every house, car 
and wayside stall. The streets were full of cars and carts 
transporting enormous cardboard cartons as sales of television sets 
zoomed.
Those who didn't yet have television sets - they were still too 
expensive for the vast majority - made elaborate programmes to view 
the film with those fortunate friends and acquaintances who possessed 
them. Puzzled by our obduracy our servants, who had hitherto broached 
the subject with caution, now threw caution to the winds and wanted 
to know when we would get a TV like so-and-so. They huddled grumbling 
in their quarters, and grouped around the chauffeurs of our friend's 
cars and darkly indulged, I suspect, in speculative gossip about our 
solvency. The week before the scheduled screening of Pakiza their 
service to us became at first startlingly alert and obliging, and 
seeing that didn't help their cause any, they became sullen and heavy 
featured as they went about their daily tasks with a lassitude 
bordering on insurgency. At one time proud of the house they served, 
their affronted demeanor now proclaimed their humiliation at being 
attached to a house that didn't match their neighbor's assets.
We avoided their eyes and acquired a curt and supercilious manner.
And the day dawned: the Thursday on which Pakiza was to be shown on 
Amritsar television at 7 o'clock of an autumn evening. The smaller 
restaurants and tea-stalls set up sun-flower colored 
shamiyana-marquees in front of their premises and hired chairs for 
all those who could afford a cup of tea or samosas or whatever, and 
standing and squatting room for those who couldn't.
Thursday evening arrived and the servants vanished. Our friends were 
short on the telephone and otherwise un-contactable. Feeling forlorn 
and abandoned, deprived of participation in what we now realized was 
after all a landmark occasion, we decided to visit our 
television-owning friends Nilofer and Fakhar Majeed in the Cantonment.
Once the decision was taken there was an immediate sense of relief, 
and recalling all the chatter and discussions we had kept aloof from, 
there was now a sense of urgency to catch up with all that we had 
missed.
It was a memorable 4-mile drive. Lahore appeared to have suddenly 
become a ghost city, blanketed by an eerie silence. Our house was 
near the Main Gulberg market and the bustle of the market circle was 
stilled. Nothing moved but our little Volksy. There was not a child 
or dog or beggar on streets usually congested with traffic. As if 
through a curfew, and with a heightening sense of emergency, we drove 
through the deserted streets to partake of a phenomenon which, after 
all, was a citywide event.
In the Cantonment we were welcomed into a hushed room packed with 
people and we squeezed ourselves into little spaces to settle on the 
carpets. We sat through the film. We sat through it with silent 
determination, our eyes glued to the streaks and snow that filled the 
screen and the occasional snatches of black and white images of the 
famously tearful and bewitching Meena Kumari singing on her kotha, as 
our host, with helpful suggestions from the audience, fiddled with 
the tracking knobs. A strategically situated youth, who could both 
watch the screen and step outside when necessary, was in constant 
communion with another youth adjusting the antenna on the roof. The 
film suddenly became clear and the youth on the roof was yelled at to 
hold the antenna in just that exact position. The antenna stabilized 
and the audience, at one with a city fulfilling an aspiration, 
sighed, and carried away by the melodrama, wept in empathy with Meena 
Kumari.
At breakfast the next morning our ayah Zorah, looking solemn with the 
sense of occasion, untied the little knot in her dingy dupatta and 
carefully straightening a crumpled rupee note placed it before my 
husband on the dining table. Chappatti tongs in hand, the cook 
emerged from the kitchen and gravely placed another rupee note before 
us on the table. He was followed by Shukardin the bearer, the 
gardener and the sweeper. It being Friday, the dhobi was there and he 
also partook of the ceremony, placing his rupee note atop the untidy 
little pile of rupee notes. They stood across us from the table, 
respectfully, their arms hanging down their sides and shuffling, and 
Zohra-the-outspoken, who was the usual spokesperson, with a propriety 
and sense of event rare to her, announced: 'Here is our contribution. 
We will all give you one rupee each every month till you have enough 
money to buy a TV.'
The TV was installed in our house the very next day.
It was a relief to finally again belong to the family of man as it 
was reconstituted in Lahore by television.
Bapsi Sidhwa is a leading Pakistani novelist and has written such 
acclaimed works as "The Bride," "The Crow Eaters," and "Ice-Candy Man"