1982 I saw a serious budget discussion going on in the kitchen in Matale house. The debate was around to buy or not to buy a TV, I am only a spectator, but detailed pros and cons were discussed among the elders; I think my Mami got access to extra money, so the temptation was to buy a TV. At some point, the decision was made to buy a TV. The only TV distributor was Seethas studio on kings street; I think Mami was not comfortable buying without going with a trusted advisor; it is a sizable investment. We approached the veterinary surgeon, the front house neighbor who had connections at the Seethas studio. In his Volkswagen car Mami and my cousins went to buy the TV; they paid RS 2,800 and came home with the 12″ black and white Sony TV. Later in the day, the TV antenna was mounted onto the rooftop and started tuning the TV—Wednesday’s used to be old Tamil movie nights. I think the first TV channel was ITN, followed by Rupavahini in 1982.
In Colombo, at my uncle’s house at Anderson flats, there was a 12″ black and white TV. One of the highlights I can remember was periyappa watching the 1982 soccer finals; as a school soccer player, he was preparing to watch the game past midnight in Sri Lanka. I am not into it, but periyamma got to prepare everything for him, tea in a flask, snacks etc., to watch Italy VS East Germany. Italy won 3:1. The neighbor’s flat had a 14″ color TV, and we used to go there to watch the movies; also, they had a VCR (video cassette recorder). The uncle lived in Singapore and used to bring recorded video castes of Singapore Tamil programs; the popular one was Oliyum Oliyum. We used to watch them again and again.
Post-1983 riots, for a period Indian content was not shown in Sri Lanka TV, movie nights used to be locally made Tamil movies like Ponmani, Vadakkattru. But it was for a short period, during this period also started watching live cricket games. 1984 went to Jaffna for one of my cousin’s wedding. A regular event was renting a VCR and few Tamil movies and watching one after another, but we did not use the words like movie marathon or binging; we were trying to watch as many movies as possible.
Fast forward to 1988, after about long 10+ years, we were reunited as a family under one roof; as always, first job was buying “things” for the house. We came to know that there was an annual Singer sales at women’s international, Anna, and left home early in the morning to make sure we get the best deal; we came home with a Singer color TV and TV stand. That was the first TV owned by the family, limited channels, no fights over who will watch what; later on, we added a VCR—started recording every possible program that including two of my appearance on Rupavahini. We end up recording everything here and there, and when we have to put a name on the label of the cassette, we did not know what to call, Akka labeled it “Sambar.” Doo Daruwo on Thursday nights, Palingu Menike, Kopi Kade all became part of our life. Watching election results was fun on its own. In
1989 during JVP time, we had a guideline, if official curfew, there will be TV programs the whole day. If Hartal, we can’t go out of the house but still no TV programs. Next few years, life changed. The family has separated again and moved houses, but the same TV was with me until the mid-90s when I left for New Delhi; thinking back; our life had more twists and turns than Doo Daruwo.
1996 landed in New Delhi, and the initial few years was in a hotel. First time in my life choice to an endless number of channels English, Hindi, Tamil. Lots of cricket games. After years in Hotel, after moving into an apartment, I purchased a 3 CD music player on EMI, which means you can load upto 3 CDs of a long movie and play one after another. The same system was used to play music during many in-house D&D. Quality of TV programs and advertisements were outstanding in India; after watching only ITN and Rupavahini for years, this was mind-boggling, 24 hours news channels. 1998: STAR Network sets up the STAR News channel, India’s first 24-hour news channel with NDTV. Prannoy Roy was all over this; we moved away from CNN and BBC to NDTV for local news content.
The next stop, a service apartment in Shanghai, and it was the first time in China. There was a nice big TV in the living room. I was all excited and took the remote; everything was in Chinese, I managed to navigate and started moving the channels; after about 30 minutes, the only English program I could find was teaching English. The first week was frustrating without internet in the apartment and no English content on the TV, but it was only for a short period. As soon as I found out that China is the place to buy the cheapest pirated Hollywood movie CDs the Boredom turned into an addiction, for 15 Yuan (US$ 2) you can get a CD. The interesting part was the company I was working for was the official distributor of most Hollywood movies. They had the rights to dub and sell Disney, 20th Century fox, and many other studio tiles and pretty much covering 60% of the legal maker where pirated CDs dominated 92%. Over a dinner one day CEO of that company told me, look Sugath the uniqueness of this business is if someone wants to watch Titanic, they don’t have an alternative, they have to watch Titanic, not like I don’t have coke so I will drink Pepsi (he came from Pepsi). While English movies need was taken care of, still missing the Tamil movies. To my luck, the CFO was from Chennai, he had access to Tamil movie CDs, and we were exchanging CDs in the office.
Then brief stay in Budapest, Hungary, the apartment overlooks the mountains, clear sky, tasty water. Had a large TV in the living room, while it was a good quality TV there was no English content, there was one English news channel for only a few hours a day, but, but Friday, Saturday, Sunday past midnight there will be x rated local movies something to look forward to during the weekends other than hitting the pubs for cheap beer.
When I landed in Hong Kong, again another apartment and time to buy “things,” the company I worked gave furnished apartment minus any entertainment systems. This means the need to purchase own TV, Music player and CD player. Luckily the company I worked for was the largest Panasonic distributor in the region, for heavy employee discount got a 27″ Panasonic TV. Initially did not have the cable because I was mostly on the internet, then came 9/11. In Hong Kong during that period, when you don’t have a cable connection, you still see the channels with negative images, so first I saw 9/11 happening on CNN as a negative image, the same day I called PCCW. I got the connection established and was clued on to CNN for weeks. We used to get Tamil movies CDs from a small shop in Tsim Sha Tsui, Saturday’s used to be Tamil movie night. One crazy thing was Annu Sugath, and I was closely watching to 2002 World Cup. Still, until 2nd week into the games, we did not know using the audio option, you can change the commentary to English, so we were following Cantonese commentaries. When I left Hong Kong sold the TV to another countryman, he did not simply agree it was a 27″ TV; he got me to measure using a ruler before paying the money.
First HDB house, Singapore new apartment, again buying “things”. We got a 29″ Phillips TV from Harvey Norman. I think we got excited when the salesman said he would give us two wireless headsets free. It was not much of use until our daughter was born. After long years, the first time to have Tamil channels, Saturday night Vasanthan Tamil movie, when my daughter turned 3+ her schedule around Barney, little Einstein’s, Noddy. We purchased a second Tv for the bedroom, I hardly remember where but we used to connect my laptop to that and watch Tamil movies on tamilpeek.com. The regular event during that period was going to JB and buying movie CDs.
Life looked perfectly settled until the next move came in. New house in Houston, again time to buy “things”. You suddenly realize how cheap electronics are in US compare to Singapore. We went to Best Buy, purchased a 42″ Panasonic TV with a corner TV stand. The cable provider in my area was Direct TV or Comcast. After much analysis and calling friends on best deals (typical new immigrant in the US) settled for Comcast. It was few weeks before installation day, but now you have endless content when it was installed. Every show you were waiting for, channel 5 to telecast now available in real-time. Amazing race, Survivor, Oprah, Dr. OZ, Dr. Phil, everything you need to kill your time in one remote. We also registered for a Netflix CD subscription; we get 2 CDs delivered to us every time, and when we return can rent another two, all for $7:99 per month, including delivery. We get one family movie and one kids movie. The highlight is Friday night daughter and me sleep in the living room, and Saturday morning, she watches the Netflix movie. The Tamil film CDs were purchased at Bombay Bazar on mason road or shops in Hillcroft. Only direct TV was providing Indian channels before my son was born since inlaws will be with us for a while, we decided to change to Direct TV, with a satellite dish on the roof. We all enjoyed the Tamil content. But during one of the hurricanes, the dish was damaged, and we were without TV for some time.
I sold the TV on Craigslist, one elderly lady came and offered 20% of the purchased price, she came alone so I have to help her to load the TV onto the truck and make sure it was secured, the whole thing took about 90 minutes, the cost of my labor was more than the price I made from selling the TV. Life can’t go on the same way too long, so back in Singapore, new apartment again time to buy “things”. We purchased a Samsung smart TV loaded with apps. Last night in the late-night show Jimmy Fallon announced that paramount is going to release a new streaming service, while he was saying that I started counting the streaming Apps on my TV Netflix, Amazon Prime, MeWatch, Disney+, YouTube, Hotstar, Cast My mind started thinking can’t we have all this in one place Didn’t we have cable consolidating all this and wanted to cut the cord and end up with multiple Apps?
