The Complications of watching TV

The following was written in 2001. Some things have changed - the little 13" Tv was upgraded to a 19" TV when our friends moved to India and they gave it to us as they felt sorry for us :-). They had 3 tvs. NBC is now the good and clear channel while CBS is still the worst of the five.
Evrything is still the same - oh yes - we also have a remote now.

Watching TV - in our house

I entered the world of Cable Television and got completely hooked on sitcoms and MTV when I came as a Grad. Student ( from India ) in August 1990. Music videos were the coolest things I had ever come across until then. Outside of school and studies (which left very little time), TV became my companion. I considered myself lucky that I had a roommate who was already working and had a big screen TV. One of the reasons why I took to watching a lot of TV so effortlessly was because of the number of choices available for my personal pick – a novelty I had not experienced in India. You have to keep in mind that unlike today, India in 1990 had only “Doordarshan” which was managed by the Govt. and the programs broadcast were whatever the govt. deemed fit to show. There were no other channels – well, there was the local program before the National program began but that was even worse, therefore hardly watched.

Another reason for watching so much TV was because after I came back from school and doing research, I was tired and it was easier to relax by watching a sitcom that provoked laughter. Little wonders then that my favorites were some of the silliest shows. It was also because I was lonely and watching TV gave the illusion of being with people much more than reading a book. For some reason, although I am an avid reader, I barely read while I was at the university. Time and money were luxuries I did not have then. Books don’t appear with the press of a button – one has go to a bookstore and buy them or go to the library to borrow reading books. You have to sit still and read – you cannot read and eat dinner but you can certainly watch TV while eating or even preparing dinner. TV won by its inherent convenience and because you don’t have to think or do anything except press a button. The perfect idiot’s box and I spent hours being an idiot or learning to become one as I watched and enjoyed Al Bundy’s idiocy. Besides I learnt a lot about my new country watching sitcoms. At least the speech and expressions part of it was useful for my assimilation or to understanding the Americanism my classmates and students were using.” Having a cow” was one expression I learnt and understood when I saw a teenage actor use it in one of those shows. I don’t know how far it took me in my assimilation of American life but I remembered using it once or twice as a student. I cannot imagine how I can apply it to my life now without sounding crazy and I have not used it at all. I guess I am trying to say I have not made much of all the hours-spent watching TV.

After two and a half years of Graduate school, I left to join the real world. I also managed to squeeze in a marriage. It seemed my husband also spent a lot of school time watching TV. So, newly married and feeling overly pious about using time efficiently, my husband and I decided that we would live without TV. A sort of making a fresh start with father Time and do him justice. So we did not have any TV in our apartment and hence did not watch TV at all for 2 years. We have (and still do) a stereo with excellent speakers and always had music playing whenever we were indoors. It was also an introduction to classical music for me because until then, I had only listened to pop music (of the Air supply kinds), country music and some Beatles. The closest I came to classical music were church hymns – which I still love.

We went out often on weekends and watched movies in the theater. Sometimes, it was dinner and movies and most times we went to a bookstore and checked out new books and flipped through magazines. We even heard some authors read their books. These days, bookstores don’t only sell books – they have many events planned. Apart from the obvious Authors book signing events, big stores like Barnes & Nobles have (believe it or not) folk singers performing or percussionists playing on South American drums etc.

Basically, because we did not watch TV we got to read books; listen to music; went out a lot and saw interesting movies and spent a lot of time in bookstores. I don’t think we ever missed not watching the TV and as for news, we had radios that we listened to on our way to work and that was quite enough.

However, all this changed in the summer of 1995, when Bapcha’s sister and her husband came to live with us during their summer internship. When my sister in-law discovered that our house had no TV she said “I cannot live without ER – it is a very good show. And I do not want to miss any episode“. They went to the goodwill store and other places to look for one. We mentioned this to some of our friends and one of them said they have a small 13” sitting unused in their garage. It had no remote and for antenna, it had the 2 spikes - the ubiquitous horns for the idiot box. So, that is how we acquired a TV of our own. However, we did not watch the TV that entire summer and soon after our guests had left to go back to school, we put it back in its box cover and it went into the cupboard to stay for good.

It did not stay there very long. Sometime in December, my sister came to visit us and to keep her occupied with something while we went to work, the little 13” came out of the cupboard and into the guestroom. My sister watched TV and got acquainted with Oprah while we were at work. Another friend offered us a VCR that he was not using anymore – he had upgraded to a better and newer model. So, we started to watch movies and our house that had no TV for 2 years now had more options than just watching TV programs. We could now watch movies at home. It was so wonderful to go and check out movies from the local branch of the public library. Finally, our tax dollars were actually at work! But because we were watching movies and my sister was watching TV, we started to join her and before long, both Bapcha and I had our favorite shows. The insidious tentacles of the idiot box reached out and grabbed us captive much against our will. It became very difficult to not watch anymore and I can’t remember the last time we went out to a movie theater or a bookstore on a Friday evening.

However, our TV watching habit is very different from say yours or any other normal household. Not that we are abnormal but in this case of TV watching we are not quite under the normal category. First off, it is limited to what channels we can get. Remember that there is no antenna on the roof and no cable connection. We get what we can with the small antenna that sits on top of the TV. And not all channels that we get are the same. The picture quality is as varied from one channel to the other. It is not perfect but after having lived with this TV and its idiosyncrasies, we have figured out the optimum setup for each station.

First of all, we realized that the reception was different in different rooms. Once we admitted that yes we do watch TV – we gave it a permanent dwelling place in our guest room and it sits on a chair in front of window. This was a strategic decision, as you will soon see. Also we found out that we can receive 5 stations in all and four out of five have to be manipulated. In San Jose, there is one station that does not need an antenna because the signal is very strong and that is KNTV. It used to be an ABC channel, then it became WB20 and now it is NBC. Same people but different name – only reason to watch it is to catch the news an hour earlier than other stations. Then there is the ABC channel – which became our favorite when the show “Who wants to be a millionaire” first began. This is an easy channel to get – we get it just by a few twists of the antenna control knob and make sure the 2 antennas are placed such that they look like a V. Hence we call it the default station and watch it for shows like “20/20”, ” Downtown “ and “Prime Time“. Easily our most watched channel because of its relative ease and fine picture quality

We then have what we call our “ Season limited channels” – of which NBC and CBS belong. NBC is by far our favorite channel although watched limitedly. The picture quality is just okay but can quickly deteriorate and merely look snowy if the computer or any electrical appliance is on in the house. We like the new “Weakest Link “ show and ” Frasier” is easily on of our favorite - very interesting and we hate to miss it (how far have the pious wandered!). But because of the erratic nature of the reception, you must have realized that we do not follow shows on a regular basis – we watch TV but we miss a lot of episodes. And I know that is not only because we go out sometimes or read books but because of the TV itself. Watching TV comes with certain requirements and certain conditions for the 13” box to actually produce watch-able video and audio. It is actually a blessing because I find it easier to read books than to watch TV.

Anyway, back to NBC – our favorite channel cannot be received unless we keep the window open and this is why we have to keep the box in front of a window. This is fine in 3 of the seasons of California but not in winter. You east coasters may laugh away but CA winter is real winter enough for me – anything below 70 degrees is cold and this limits our NBC watching even in late fall nights and during the spring. So, no Saturday nights or David letterman for me. Too cold to keep the window open so books clearly win as they are more comforting and one can always curl up and read with throws and comforters.

CBS on the other hand requires that the window be closed. Which means no CBS on hot stuffy nights ( no working person watches TV during the day ). But that is okay as we hardly watch this channel. I missed the first Survivor that took everyone by storm so I decided to watch the second show just to see what the fuss was all about and that was it. If “60 Seconds “decides to do some story that I must absolutely watch, I know what to do. Once in a while, I watch “The Ray Romano Show” – which I really like – not so much the Ray character but all the others especially his parents. The bored father with his nasty remarks targeted against the officious mother never fail to make me laugh. I don’t find it offensive because I think that is how most families are – we are nasty to our relatives because these are the people we know we can get away with bad behavior. (What does this tell us about ourselves as human beings? We are inherently insensitive and even the most polite person loses his/her politeness with familiarity. Or that if we meet only strangers, most of us would be polite! )

Sometimes, I watch PBS – which has plenty good shows especially when they have the fund raising events and thus show off their best in an effort to entice your money away from your pocket. But it is a once in a while channel to watch because the reception is not clear - it strains your eye to watch snowy pictures. I watch when I have no books to read or late at night when I can’t go to sleep. We found out that we cannot improve it by playing with the window or the antenna or the control knobs. So, although PBS has good shows it can never be the favorite channel in our home.

Perhaps it is because we started out with no TV, we do not head for the room that houses the TV as the first thing we do when we go home. That was what we did as students – come inside, pick up the remote and start flipping channels as we throw ourselves onto the couch. Most often it is what we do when we have absolutely nothing to read or nowhere to go or are very tired. We cannot get FOX despite whatever we do and out of the five channels we do get, we just watch one or two some evenings of the week. And we are happy with that. There are so many things we can do without watching TV or the news. I have noticed that even if you don’t watch the news when something happens you get to hear about it anyway. Besides, you can always watch it after the first broadcast because every station broadcasts the happenings over and over again – until no one can possibly miss it unless they are away from civilization.

Anyway, for now, our little 13” still works and we can also pop a movie into the VCR anytime we want. I know everyone else is watching DVD but videos are still good enough for us. It is hard to keep up with technology –better and faster models are always coming out of the factories – so it helps when we are simply content with what we have. It helps that we are easily pleased with things in life. We also hate to change. Which explains why we do not posses a cell phone but that is another story altogether and I really do not want to go on and on. Suffice is to say that we have managed comfortably with a regular phone so far and we can’t miss what we don’t have. Something, those of you who cannot live without a cell phone may have forgotten.

However, I have to be honest and say that there is something to be said for a good home theater system. We have friends who have the latest gadgets and after watching a movie on a 52” flat screen TV with surround sound – I find myself raring to buy one too. Especially these days when AMC charges $9 for a movies and $5 for a popcorn. It is far too expensive to just go out for a movie. But then, I see that I have to either rearrange my décor to fit a 500 lbs. entertainment set or remodel my house to find room for this monstrosity – and I discovered that I that I am quite happy with what I already have.