recollection
I saw a familiar face today on TV, it was that of an egyptian pharoah and after spending sometime trying to recollect my childhood memories, I realised the pharoah's face looked like that of "Giant Robot", the series on Doordarshan, I used to watch and like so much. I always wanted to be that kid with the watch and who used to control the Robot. Which kid wouldn't want to control a robot! I also found a link that had some more information on this superb show!
Pharoah Giant Robot
After spending more than an hour recollecting as much as possible, I decided to search on net for some links and I did find many. I very much remember that we had a Black and white Dynora TV and my cousins on the other hand had a Solidaire. We always used to fight about whose TV was better. One of the positives of our TV was that shutter! The TV we had always had to be tuned as there used to be noise everytime it was switched on. The following are the soaps/shows that used to come on the one and only "Doordarshan". Only channel 1 was available as DD2(metro) was not available in Bangalore for a very long time. I could recollect a lot of shows -
1. He-Man and the masters of the universe: He Man drew his sword and said "By the power of grey skull" (for a long time I had thought it was "By the power of grace god"!) and point his sword towards his big cat. It went something like this -
He man...By the power of grey skull...I am the power ("he-man" being played in background)...some music that I still remember!
And at the end of every episode, there used to be some advice for kids!
2. Spider Man: I was able to find some episodes of this awesome animation show "somewhere" and just enjoyed watching it. The start went something like this -
Spiderman....spiderman....friendly neighbourhood spiderman
He can do...whatever...a spider can
It was also played in Spiderman 2 movie by a woman on footpath.
3. Hum Log: Badki, manjali and chutki. Lallu and Nanhe (always used to listen to cricket comentary). Story of a middle class family potrayed so well. One of the best soaps!
4. Buniyad: Yet another, very nicely potrayed serial on DD.
5. Khandaan: I remember we used to call it "paandaan" (the vessel people spit in after they are done chewing paan)
6. Udaan: Awesome opening music. I always used to admire that female (dont remember her name though) and her dad (I think Vikram Gokhale).
7. Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi: Hilarious comedy. Cast of nice comedians - Shafi Inamdar, Swaroop Sampat, Satish Shah, Rakesh Bedi and Tiku Talsaaniya. Opening lines went something like this -
Yeh jo haiii....zindagi...thodi khatti....thodi meethi
Thodi ...thodi
....
Kuch alag hi hai mazaaaaa
8. Dekh Bhai Dekh: One more nice comedy that used to come on DD-2. Sekhar suman was just tooo good.
9. Mungeri Laal ke hasin sapne: Dont remember much about it. But the main actor used to wink one of his eyes when he used to dream.
10. Kaaramchand: Detective with a gaajar (carrot)...and always used to say "kitty, dont be silly".
11. Bomkesh (Vyomkesh) Bakshi: The bengali detective who used to solve some complicated cases. I was really a fan of this actor (he did very well in the movie Ghulam too). They always used to drink chai (tea) in the serial. Set in the age of British, it was a very nice detective series.
12. Wagle ki duniya: Anjan Shrivastav played the role of Wagle in this series, but strangely I dont remember much about this serial.
13. Malgudi Days: Aaah, who can forget this. I got hold of some episodes very recently and really enjoyed watching it. It also used to come on Pogo, watched it without fail at 11:30 night. I left India just when swami and his friends had started :-(. And Malgudi days theme is the ringtone of my cell phone!
14. Didi's comedy show: It used to come for half an hour on sundays. I used to enjoy watching it. At the end there used to be a "Transtel" logo. I think a lot of these western imports were from Transtel.
15. UGC Programme: It used to come at noon everyday and on holidays I always used to watch it. I remember pretty well, once they unexpectedly showed human baby being born and it was raw. I was very young at that time and I was so disgusted with it that I had puked a couple of times that day!
16. Gul Gulshan Gulfaam: Based on a family in Kashmir valley, I first saw boathouses in this serial. It was a bit slow though and I had lost interest after sometime. Other family members used to watch it though. Some of my friends had named it "Guu Gobar Ghalazat" (shit dung dirt) :-)
17. Sword of Tipu Sultan: One of Hyder Ali's friend was Ghazi baba, does anyone remember the other 2 names? This was a very nice production and Tipu Sultan has been one of the most inspiring historical figures, but some of the episodes were very slow. I remember tipu's mother keeps crying in one of the episodes (whole episode), but I dont remember the subject though. Tipu's sword was bought by Vijay Mallaya, who paraded it during his election rallies. It was like "Langoor ke mooh me angoor".
Some of his quotes (taken straight from wikipedia) -
* 'Religious tolerance is the fundamental tenet of the Holy Quran…' (1787)
* 'Agriculture is the life blood of the nation…' (1788)
* 'There can be no glory or achievement if the foundation of our palaces, roads and dams are mingled with the tears and blood of humanity…' (1789)
He is often quoted as having said "It is far better to live like a lion for a day than to live like a jackal for a hundred years".
18. Ramayan and Mahabharat: I though Mahabharat was much better that Ramayan. There were only flashes and colourful arrows in Ramayan and it was pretty slow.
19. Rajni: About a female who always used to thrash men :-). The lines went something like this -
Ladki hai ek...naam Rajni haai...(rajni...rajni playing in background)
Rajni ki dekho yeh kahani hai
20. Stone Boy: Remember very little about this. I do remember it was set in Mauritius and it was about some invisible kid.
21. Tamas: I think it was the depiction of a novel. It was set during the times of partition and about the agony of a sikh family. I do remember that the music was haunting!
22. Vikram aur Betaal: Very nice stories, It used to come on sundays 4:30?? or so in the afternoon before the hindi movie!
23. Simhasan Batteesi: Another story collection. I dont remember anything about what that simhasan was all about.
24. Street Hawk: Superb bike, which can fire rockets, travel very fast and what not. I think in one of the episodes, the guy who drives and the guy who built the bike fight about some damage to the bike. The guy who built the bike talks about a hairline damage to the bike or something like that.
25. Flop show: Jaspal Bhatti was just tooo good. Hilarious comedy. I think his real life wife played the role of his wife in the show. In one of the episodes a girl is in love with some other guy but girl's father insists on girl marrying a telephone line man. The line man one day sends her some fruits and guess what the fruit was? It was sugarcane! I remember I had laughed hard while all my family members were wondering what was so funny about it :-)
26. The Discovery of India: Based on the book written by the first prime minister of India, Jawahar lal Nehru. Roshan lal used to play Nehrus role and I really loved his voice!
27. Surabhi: A very nice show and I remember it went on to complete some zillion episodes. There used to be a question at the end of every episode and I used to day dream about winning it. Also sent a couple of post cards with answers. But once the govt introduced the expensive "competition postcards", I stopped bothering about winning prizes.
28. The world this week: Way better than DD news. Used to cover many international topics. It was the first time I had heard about Israel, Yasser Arafat, Saddam, Gulf war, Bosnia, Rawandan Genocide etc etc. Prannoy Roy presented it very professionally.
29. Nukkad: The first thing that comes to my mind is "Khopdi" (skull), the always drunk guy. It was played by the same guy who was in Kamal Hassan's movie "Pushpaka Vimana".
30. Circus: A nice drama which brought Shah Rukh into hindi movies.
31. Fauji: Dont remember much about it. Shah Rukh Khan was there and he played a fauji...thats it.
32. Tenaali Raam: It was about Tenali Raam. I can still recollect the opening song and some of the tricks of this clever man.
33. Potli baba ki kahaniyan: Short stories collection...The opening lines went something like this -
Gindhar wale...jheelo wale... ka baba
kisson ka...kahaniyon ka
34. Mulla Naeeruddin: It was about Mulla Naseeruddin...set in 13th century...lived in Baghdad and Zohra Sehgal used to narrate in this.
35. Ek do teen chaar: About 4 kid detectives. Remember the lines tooo!
Ek do teen chaar...Ek do teen chaar
Chaaron milke saath chalen toh honge chamatkar
kabhibhi judaa na hon...ham hain aise yaar
Ek do teen chaar...Ek do teen chaar
36. Chitrahaar: Used to come on Fridays 8PM or so. Some good songs used to come.
37. Rangoli: Used to come on sundays 7:30 in the morning for 45 mins. Mostly used to miss...as I used to be asleep.
38. Agatha Christie's Poirot: Sometimes used to watch it. Its also available on amazon!
39. Duck tales, Tales Spin, Jungle Book, Mickey and Donald, Mummies Alive, Tom and Jerry, Chip and Dale - the rescue rangers and many more. Glad that I have some of these cartoons on DVD and like :-)
40. Jeevan Rekha: Was pretty good. I guess Tanvi Azmi was in it.
41. English movie on saturday(or sunday?) night. I remember having watched "Enter the dragon".
I might have missed a lot more. Let me know if you can find something I might have missed, I will update the list.
And I took like an hour to type all this!!!
Updates
Am adding some more that we all used to watch (omitting some tooo)
42. Mitti ke rang: A nice collection of short stories...some of them were really touchin.
43. Zigma (Space City Sigma): Dont remember much about it. It was a Star Trek rip off. Credit goes to
brokentooth
44. Indradhanush: The one with geeky kids with time machine. Credit goes to
oldpondfrog and
mahantesh
45. Mr Yogi: A skiny guy looking for a life mate. Credit goes to
prahlad
46. Shriman Shrimati: The one with the "dilbura uncle"...I dont know how I missed this...It was one of my favorite comedies. Credit goes to
enigmaticash
47. Chandrakantha: Based on a novel. It deviated from the main story of chandrakantha to that of another king and then abruptly ended. Credit goes to
mahantesh
48. Oshin: A japanese serial...All kids were very cute. Credit goes to
ashokd
49. Tehkikaat: A really nice detective series. Vijay Anand and a bald, obese guy were the main characters. Credit goes to
ashokd
50. Ek kahani: Short story every week. Credit goes to Sarika. The lines went something like this -
ek kahani halki phulki, udhjaye
Enjoy!
Pharoah Giant Robot
After spending more than an hour recollecting as much as possible, I decided to search on net for some links and I did find many. I very much remember that we had a Black and white Dynora TV and my cousins on the other hand had a Solidaire. We always used to fight about whose TV was better. One of the positives of our TV was that shutter! The TV we had always had to be tuned as there used to be noise everytime it was switched on. The following are the soaps/shows that used to come on the one and only "Doordarshan". Only channel 1 was available as DD2(metro) was not available in Bangalore for a very long time. I could recollect a lot of shows -
1. He-Man and the masters of the universe: He Man drew his sword and said "By the power of grey skull" (for a long time I had thought it was "By the power of grace god"!) and point his sword towards his big cat. It went something like this -
He man...By the power of grey skull...I am the power ("he-man" being played in background)...some music that I still remember!
And at the end of every episode, there used to be some advice for kids!
2. Spider Man: I was able to find some episodes of this awesome animation show "somewhere" and just enjoyed watching it. The start went something like this -
Spiderman....spiderman....friendly neighbourhood spiderman
He can do...whatever...a spider can
It was also played in Spiderman 2 movie by a woman on footpath.
3. Hum Log: Badki, manjali and chutki. Lallu and Nanhe (always used to listen to cricket comentary). Story of a middle class family potrayed so well. One of the best soaps!
4. Buniyad: Yet another, very nicely potrayed serial on DD.
5. Khandaan: I remember we used to call it "paandaan" (the vessel people spit in after they are done chewing paan)
6. Udaan: Awesome opening music. I always used to admire that female (dont remember her name though) and her dad (I think Vikram Gokhale).
7. Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi: Hilarious comedy. Cast of nice comedians - Shafi Inamdar, Swaroop Sampat, Satish Shah, Rakesh Bedi and Tiku Talsaaniya. Opening lines went something like this -
Yeh jo haiii....zindagi...thodi khatti....thodi meethi
Thodi ...thodi
....
Kuch alag hi hai mazaaaaa
8. Dekh Bhai Dekh: One more nice comedy that used to come on DD-2. Sekhar suman was just tooo good.
9. Mungeri Laal ke hasin sapne: Dont remember much about it. But the main actor used to wink one of his eyes when he used to dream.
10. Kaaramchand: Detective with a gaajar (carrot)...and always used to say "kitty, dont be silly".
11. Bomkesh (Vyomkesh) Bakshi: The bengali detective who used to solve some complicated cases. I was really a fan of this actor (he did very well in the movie Ghulam too). They always used to drink chai (tea) in the serial. Set in the age of British, it was a very nice detective series.
12. Wagle ki duniya: Anjan Shrivastav played the role of Wagle in this series, but strangely I dont remember much about this serial.
13. Malgudi Days: Aaah, who can forget this. I got hold of some episodes very recently and really enjoyed watching it. It also used to come on Pogo, watched it without fail at 11:30 night. I left India just when swami and his friends had started :-(. And Malgudi days theme is the ringtone of my cell phone!
14. Didi's comedy show: It used to come for half an hour on sundays. I used to enjoy watching it. At the end there used to be a "Transtel" logo. I think a lot of these western imports were from Transtel.
15. UGC Programme: It used to come at noon everyday and on holidays I always used to watch it. I remember pretty well, once they unexpectedly showed human baby being born and it was raw. I was very young at that time and I was so disgusted with it that I had puked a couple of times that day!
16. Gul Gulshan Gulfaam: Based on a family in Kashmir valley, I first saw boathouses in this serial. It was a bit slow though and I had lost interest after sometime. Other family members used to watch it though. Some of my friends had named it "Guu Gobar Ghalazat" (shit dung dirt) :-)
17. Sword of Tipu Sultan: One of Hyder Ali's friend was Ghazi baba, does anyone remember the other 2 names? This was a very nice production and Tipu Sultan has been one of the most inspiring historical figures, but some of the episodes were very slow. I remember tipu's mother keeps crying in one of the episodes (whole episode), but I dont remember the subject though. Tipu's sword was bought by Vijay Mallaya, who paraded it during his election rallies. It was like "Langoor ke mooh me angoor".
Some of his quotes (taken straight from wikipedia) -
* 'Religious tolerance is the fundamental tenet of the Holy Quran…' (1787)
* 'Agriculture is the life blood of the nation…' (1788)
* 'There can be no glory or achievement if the foundation of our palaces, roads and dams are mingled with the tears and blood of humanity…' (1789)
He is often quoted as having said "It is far better to live like a lion for a day than to live like a jackal for a hundred years".
18. Ramayan and Mahabharat: I though Mahabharat was much better that Ramayan. There were only flashes and colourful arrows in Ramayan and it was pretty slow.
19. Rajni: About a female who always used to thrash men :-). The lines went something like this -
Ladki hai ek...naam Rajni haai...(rajni...rajni playing in background)
Rajni ki dekho yeh kahani hai
20. Stone Boy: Remember very little about this. I do remember it was set in Mauritius and it was about some invisible kid.
21. Tamas: I think it was the depiction of a novel. It was set during the times of partition and about the agony of a sikh family. I do remember that the music was haunting!
22. Vikram aur Betaal: Very nice stories, It used to come on sundays 4:30?? or so in the afternoon before the hindi movie!
23. Simhasan Batteesi: Another story collection. I dont remember anything about what that simhasan was all about.
24. Street Hawk: Superb bike, which can fire rockets, travel very fast and what not. I think in one of the episodes, the guy who drives and the guy who built the bike fight about some damage to the bike. The guy who built the bike talks about a hairline damage to the bike or something like that.
25. Flop show: Jaspal Bhatti was just tooo good. Hilarious comedy. I think his real life wife played the role of his wife in the show. In one of the episodes a girl is in love with some other guy but girl's father insists on girl marrying a telephone line man. The line man one day sends her some fruits and guess what the fruit was? It was sugarcane! I remember I had laughed hard while all my family members were wondering what was so funny about it :-)
26. The Discovery of India: Based on the book written by the first prime minister of India, Jawahar lal Nehru. Roshan lal used to play Nehrus role and I really loved his voice!
27. Surabhi: A very nice show and I remember it went on to complete some zillion episodes. There used to be a question at the end of every episode and I used to day dream about winning it. Also sent a couple of post cards with answers. But once the govt introduced the expensive "competition postcards", I stopped bothering about winning prizes.
28. The world this week: Way better than DD news. Used to cover many international topics. It was the first time I had heard about Israel, Yasser Arafat, Saddam, Gulf war, Bosnia, Rawandan Genocide etc etc. Prannoy Roy presented it very professionally.
29. Nukkad: The first thing that comes to my mind is "Khopdi" (skull), the always drunk guy. It was played by the same guy who was in Kamal Hassan's movie "Pushpaka Vimana".
30. Circus: A nice drama which brought Shah Rukh into hindi movies.
31. Fauji: Dont remember much about it. Shah Rukh Khan was there and he played a fauji...thats it.
32. Tenaali Raam: It was about Tenali Raam. I can still recollect the opening song and some of the tricks of this clever man.
33. Potli baba ki kahaniyan: Short stories collection...The opening lines went something like this -
Gindhar wale...jheelo wale... ka baba
kisson ka...kahaniyon ka
34. Mulla Naeeruddin: It was about Mulla Naseeruddin...set in 13th century...lived in Baghdad and Zohra Sehgal used to narrate in this.
35. Ek do teen chaar: About 4 kid detectives. Remember the lines tooo!
Ek do teen chaar...Ek do teen chaar
Chaaron milke saath chalen toh honge chamatkar
kabhibhi judaa na hon...ham hain aise yaar
Ek do teen chaar...Ek do teen chaar
36. Chitrahaar: Used to come on Fridays 8PM or so. Some good songs used to come.
37. Rangoli: Used to come on sundays 7:30 in the morning for 45 mins. Mostly used to miss...as I used to be asleep.
38. Agatha Christie's Poirot: Sometimes used to watch it. Its also available on amazon!
39. Duck tales, Tales Spin, Jungle Book, Mickey and Donald, Mummies Alive, Tom and Jerry, Chip and Dale - the rescue rangers and many more. Glad that I have some of these cartoons on DVD and like :-)
40. Jeevan Rekha: Was pretty good. I guess Tanvi Azmi was in it.
41. English movie on saturday(or sunday?) night. I remember having watched "Enter the dragon".
I might have missed a lot more. Let me know if you can find something I might have missed, I will update the list.
And I took like an hour to type all this!!!
Updates
Am adding some more that we all used to watch (omitting some tooo)
42. Mitti ke rang: A nice collection of short stories...some of them were really touchin.
43. Zigma (Space City Sigma): Dont remember much about it. It was a Star Trek rip off. Credit goes to
brokentooth
44. Indradhanush: The one with geeky kids with time machine. Credit goes to
oldpondfrog and
mahantesh
45. Mr Yogi: A skiny guy looking for a life mate. Credit goes to
prahlad
46. Shriman Shrimati: The one with the "dilbura uncle"...I dont know how I missed this...It was one of my favorite comedies. Credit goes to
enigmaticash
47. Chandrakantha: Based on a novel. It deviated from the main story of chandrakantha to that of another king and then abruptly ended. Credit goes to
mahantesh
48. Oshin: A japanese serial...All kids were very cute. Credit goes to
ashokd
49. Tehkikaat: A really nice detective series. Vijay Anand and a bald, obese guy were the main characters. Credit goes to
ashokd
50. Ek kahani: Short story every week. Credit goes to Sarika. The lines went something like this -
ek kahani halki phulki, udhjaye
Enjoy!