The Day I Saw Color for the First Time

As the taxi backed its way into the long, narrow alley—disrupting our game of cricket—I remember seeing a huge, brown box bulging out of the half-open trunk. Only thing holding it in was a skinny brown twine.

My older, pre-teen brother’s eyes lit-up; even as my seven-year-old brain tried to figure out the content of that huge box. Giving up his turn at batting, my brother ran home in excitement. My curiosity followed him. “Our TV is here, our color TV is here,” he declared to the neighbors. I didn’t quite understand. We already had a television set and it worked just fine, thank you.

We were one of the few families in our neighborhood with a television set. This meant that on Sunday mornings, the neighborhood kids cramped into our tiny living room to watch Spiderman cartoons and a very popular Hindu mythological show.

Weekday evenings drew an older crowd that frequently dropped in to say hello but left only after watching the local news and other regional programs.

Because the electronic media was controlled solely by the Indian Government, the programming available on television in those days was limited to four hours in the evenings and two hours on Sunday mornings. Back then, the leaders of the country frowned upon television, looking on at it as a luxury Indians could do without.

A small crowd had gathered around that taxi, as my father and the taxi driver unloaded the television set. The crowd whispered amongst themselves and tried to sneak a peek at the box with their eyebrows raised and eyes wide open. Or at least that’s what I remember.

Not knowing what the fuss was all about, I asked my brother as to what was so special about this new TV set. “Color” he said. I nodded. At that time, however, I don’t think I quite understood what he meant. As far as I was concerned, Black and White is what all TVs looked liked. And even after the new “color” TV took its place in our living room, I didn’t see any difference because the broadcast transmission was still in Black and White.

And then, I saw color for the first time.

My brother woke me up at 4:00 am and dragged me into the living room. The living room was already buzzing with activity—additional seating being made available, teacups being passed around. Everyone, family and acquaintances alike, assumed their position to witness the exclusive, live, color, broadcast of the 1984 summer Olympic opening ceremony in Los Angeles. The first of its kind.

This event was extraordinary. It was unlike anything I had seen before. The fascinating colors on the TV set had a lasting impression on my memory. I remember very vividly seeing a man fly! A man, with some kind of a jet propulsion pack flew over the crowd and landed in the middle of the stadium. I knew my cousins lived in Los Angeles and I wondered if they had one of their own “flying back packs.” Maybe that’s how they will soon go to school. They must have had color televisions there since ages, I thought.

This imposing colorful display drew a positive picture, in my seven-year-old brain of a place I knew very little about. It was a place that was better and more colorful than my own poor country. After all, the images of my own country on TV were always in Black and White.

Time for an old school commercial break.

By the early 90s almost everyone in our neighborhood had a color TV set of their own. From one national channel in the 80s, Indian viewers were exposed to more than 50 channels by the year 1996. In the early 90s, when urban Indians learnt that it was possible to watch the Gulf War on television, they rushed out and bought satellite dishes for their homes. Others turned entrepreneurs and started offering the signal to their neighbors by flinging cable over treetops and verandahs.

Channels as diverse as BBC and ESPN, programming as diverse as American sitcoms and Australian soaps, made their way into our living rooms, where, just a few years ago, the only channel available was state owned and loaded with government propaganda.

However, by this time, the government was opening up the Indian economy to foreign players and setting up liberal policies, which they had shunned since independence. They did not try to regulate or restrict this newly mushrooming cable industry.

Opening up the economy and embracing globalization, total Capitalism, and over-commercialization was welcome by many in India. In his Book India Unbound, author Gurcharan Das wrote: "In August 1947 we got our political independence, and in July 1991 we got our economic independence – which was just as important”

But, in reality, many would say that colonial imperialism was simply replaced by a cultural one. The global media invasion had begun.

In my early teens, I was as fascinated by Beverly Hills 90210 as I was with the Australian soap Neighbors. However, this Global media invasion that I was surrounded by, was overwhelmingly American. Among the new channels that were made available, the one that has the greatest impact on me and kids my age was MTV. MTV-Asia to be precise. It was part of the Star TV network and it was an instant hit.

For decades, the government censored Indian movies, especially when it came to sexually explicit images. Satellite television, since it was broadcast from outside India, was not answerable to the Indian government’s moral police. MTV music videos, with scantily clad women and booty shaking hip-hop moves found a captive audience in India. Within a couple of years, homegrown videos with almost the exact same content, started airing on MTV-Asia.

I had gladly consumed, without questioning, what MTV had thrown my way. However, one late night, I saw a music video on MTV that changed all this. It was by an Indian band called Indus-creed. Their music blended the Seattle grunge sound with classical Indian music. They were as comfortable on the guitar as they were on the tabla. Indus-creed was the only thing on MTV that kids like me could really identify with.

Unfortunately, they were the exception, not the rule. And their success was short lived. Over the years, the tendency in the Indian music industry has favored embracing “western” trends while killing self-identity. With a few exceptions here and there, western popular music had pretty much dictated trends in the Indian pop music.

The media plays a key role in shaping an individual as well as a country. The media may even have the power to shape cultures. However, unlike political power, when the power of the media is imposed on to people, it is subtle and it almost seems consensual.

The media showed me color for the first time. But it may have also blinded me.