PART 1 OF 2

We have a giant monstrosity of a TV sitting in our living room. Our old 27 inch Sony is a trooper. Even after 12 years it is in perfect working condition. There was no need to upgrade. But the husband works in the field of Digital Video Technology and wanted a cool new TV. The guy hardly splurges on anything for himself, so I had no problems welcoming the TV with open arms.

Now, I am not a big TV watcher. When I was new to this country, most of the afternoons were spent in front of the TV. Then it came down to one sitcom a day and few movies over the week. Slowly over the three years other things started displacing TV time. Finally on the days, I do sit down to watch a movie, after the first 15 minutes, the TV is watching me. I am happily suspended in dreams lulled by the TV’s white noise.

The kids, used to watch PBS while we shoved food in to their mouth. At least that’s what Chula did. Now, Mieja being Mieja, NOTHING works with her. She would still watch TV without bating an eyelid and her hand would automatically swat the spoon that comes close to her. (I have a theory about her absorbing nutrients directly from air. Let me not digress.) Just around the time our ‘big giant TV’ entered our home, I was considering my options. For one thing I did not want to turn the TV on during every meal. The main reason is the amount of electricity it sucked. The second reason, I felt that the TV was simply too big. The children were getting mesmerized by the effect the big screen created and I could almost see squiggly, swirly lines in their eyes. I simply didn’t like what I saw. The third reason, if at all they watched something, I wanted them to watch something in their mother tongue. So I switched the kids to eating in the kitchen, while I read books. The children adapted well..err…Mieja was still swatting spoons, but hey it didn’t get any worse right?

But by the end of the day, I didn’t have the energy to work hard. So YouTube was introduced in to their world. I even remember how it all started. November 2007, Chula’s school had taken all the children to a special screening of The Jungle Book. I was very curious about Chula’s reaction to the experience. But the dame can be so tight mouthed. Even after endless pestering she only managed to say, ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘Uh-uh’. So I looked for jungle book clips in YouTube and showed it to the children, just to make Chula talk. Mieja was immediately hooked on. Then came a phase where we watched lots of Tamil rhymes on Youtube. Within a week the children memorized all the rhymes. They were greatly kicked when I was able to dig out some of their favorite books on video, so was I. Then came a phase where they started making specific requests on what they want to watch. The situation now got very interesting, because the computer had just replaced TV!

…Continued soon…