Doordarshan – Indian public television broadcaster turns 50 today – congratulations!
The word "doordarshan" is in Hindi and made up of two words "door" (means "far" in English) and "darshan" (means "vision" in English). The word "doordarshan" literally means "tele vision". It started with a mere $20,000 and 180 Philips TV sets donated by UNESCO to Indian government on Sep 15, 1959.
If you grew up in India how can you forget soap operas like:
- Pramita Puri as the first announcer and Salma Sultan the ever charming news reader
- Aap ke Liye – the Sunday morning show by Vinod Dua
- Phool Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan featuring Tabassum and movie stars
- Hum Log, Buniyaad, Nukkad, Rajani – legendary multi-months episode touching lives of common man
- Ramayana and Mahabharat – great Indian mythological epics
- Bharat Ek Khoj – shows 5000 years of Indian history
- Chitrahaar – collection of Bollywood movie songs
- Malgudi Days – collection of short stories by R. K. Narayan
- Karamchand and Byomkesh Bakshi – Indian Sherlock Holmes
- Comedy shows like Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, Mungeri Laal ke Haseen Sapney, and Flop Show
- Sunday evening movie (one of the biggest attractions)
- and many others.
It’s a truly joyous and nosalgic moment and something to relish for all Indians.
Unlike today, there used to be a startup and shutdown time for TV channels. Enjoy the signature montage of Doordarshan below:
And couple more of my favorite videos:
What are/were your favorite serials from Doordarshan ?
Technorati: doordarshan india
Thank you for bringing back old memories, Arun. Ah, the days that Doordarshan was the only show in town which forced you to eagerly wait for the shows. I remember looking forward to some of them especially Chitrahaar or it’s regional variants and getting so ticked off when you have power outage just at that time and thinking, you get to watch it only once a week and this is what happens. Even when you had power, Doordarshan would play the spoilsport and play songs that you never even have heard of.
Also, thank you for the good content on your blog.
Comment by M.R. — September 16, 2009 @ 9:03 am