Looney Terrors !!!

When I was a young kid, before the advent of satellite television in India, my life was fairly simple. During weekdays due to lack of any interesting program on Doordarshan, I played with other kids of the locality. Kiddish games like hide & seek, stampoo, pithoo and kho-kho. I used to look forward to Sunday morning. It was a ritual to get up at 8.30 am and sit glued to the TV to watch Disney Hour, He-Man,Duck-tales at 9 am. But now I cant help but sympathize with my nieces and nephews. These guys are so confused with 24X7 cartoon channels, and with Tata Sky giving option to watch in any language -English,Hindi or regional. The cartoons are no more Superheroes or cute characters, they are like Shinchan , who is a five year old kid who uses inappropriate language and shows disrespect for elders. Parents are terrorized and don't want their kids to watch TV. Many parents think they are smart and put child-lock. But they miss the point that today's kids who use laptop and play games on X-box can't be easily fooled with a child-lock.

Now to an outsider this may just seem as a generational gap or technological advancement. But on the ground level kids are losing their innocence and childhood. Watching T.V. all day is as it is bad, but watching disturbing and aggressive animated programs results in restlessness and aggression in kids behaviour. Their sense of reality and acceptable social behaviour is blurred.

I guess good old days of Doordarshan and DD metro were really not so bad after all.