Thought Crimes

Back in the Farmhouse one day, I was engrossed in a (somewhat) deep discussion about how I'd changed in the four years in college. What I'd started liking/disliking, what I'd discovered about myself and the et cetras. I think the discussion lasted about 10 minutes before we decided to move on to more important things, namely AoE. Incidentally, that was one of the things on the aforementioned list. Blogging or writing, to be more general, was another. Yet another was a love for SitComs, which I considered so significant that it even found a way on my B-school application forms a couple of months later.

Musing on the point in consideration some time later, I realized that I'd always had a fondness for sitcoms. It was just never that pronounced or never brought into the fore in as explicit a way as it was in college- 5 epistles in 8 sems, need I say anymore? TV at home had mainly meant sports and cartoons, but as I thought back, it occurred to me that there had been sitcoms slipped in here and there. The first sitcom I recall following avidly was Mind Your Language. It used to air on some channel (probably BBC) at 2130 hours Tuesday night. Mamma, Srishti and I used to enthusiastically look forward to it, codenaming it, and not very cryptically, MYL. It was followed by Murder She Wrote at 10, and we were not allowed to watch it. Packed off to bed we were, trying to make something out of what was happening in the episode from the distorted sounds we got to hear through the door in the next room. Small Wonder was the next sitcom that caught my fancy. I managed to watch the entire series in English, in Hindi and then again in Hindi before I ultimately moved on to bigger and greater things.

I'm not sure if this was before MYL or after, but I remember avidly watching Dennis the Menace- not animated, black and white, and probably aired on Sony. It was dubbed like most other 'imported' shows of the 90s. They used to show I Dream of Jeanie on the same channel sometime later. Another brilliant show. I think it was black and white to begin with too, and later became coloured. Some of my cousins used to watch Bewitched, but I never liked it too much. And then of course, there was Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad. Not a sitcom, but I just had to slip that in. I always considered it 'the' thing in awesomeness. That guy used to get into the comp and fight viruses. What more can an imaginative geeky kid want?

At some point, Zee started telecasting Silver Spoons, Who's the Boss and Different Strokes- dubbed again, of course. I usually missed the first because it coincided with my cricket playing time. Who's the Boss, I used to catch snippets off. I always found the young girl cute and she sure did a brilliant job growing up to become Alyssa Milano. Different Strokes was the one that I followed. I came to know that they've started showing re-runs on Zee English now.

After our move to Delhi, the cable-walah decided to oblige us with Nick, and more importantly Keenan and Kel. Awesome again. It was around then that I started watching Full House too. I think it's good that I managed to watch it while I was still at home. I have a feeling I wouldn't have liked it so much had I started it in college.

You will, of course, have realized, that this list lacked more than a few big names by the time I'd entered college. Hence my earlier admission of discovery. 2-1 changed me from someone who was only vaguely aware of what F.R.I.E.N.D.S. was to someone who has the Rembrandts' title song as one of his many ringtones. Re-runs, re-re-runs and some more re's followed. I went home, and Srishti proved that this affinity was apparently genetic and managed to watch the entire 250+ episodes twice, or was it thrice, in the short period of a week or two. I accompanied her, obviously. By then, I'd adopted the simple and therefore effective policy- a sitcom a semester. Had I been a Boy Scout, I would have received many a badge of good work as more and more of the Lords of the Farmhouse discovered, thanks to me, that they too, had a thing for sitcoms. Coupling, South Park, HIMYM, BBT, That 70s Show, Two and a Half Men etc entered our lives, our conversations and some of our GPAs and left us more happy and content beings.

All in all, I'd say that there are 2 things in sitcoms that appeal to me. There are people who'd rather spend their time watching movies. It's not that I don't really like movies. It's just that I'm a lazy bum. Movies require commitment. 1.5 to 2 hours. Sitcoms allow you 20 minute windows. It's up to you to watch one or even 10 episodes at a go. Plus, each episode is complete in itself, which is not something that a series can boast of.