Back to a peaceful age...

The other day I was out jogging

(Or wheezing, semi-rolling and finally plopping on my face as some rather imbecile-like observers call it. Yes, I'm talking about you - the one who called the ambulance when I was merely taking a breather on the jogging path by indulging in a little Shavasan)

Anyway, I normally listen to music on my phone while running (wheezing, rolling, plopping). Unfortunately, I have a Windows phone which makes it near impossible to make a decent playlist without connecting to a computer (or even after connecting). Thus, I end up listening to the same songs again and again and again...

So this time I decided to try something else. I switched to the radio and started searching for radio stations that I normally don't listen to while driving.

And I locked into Vividhbharti

And it was so cool. No garish advertisements selling me real estate, or chirpy (screechy?) RJs playing phone pranks on people, or random people trying out tongue twisters to earn prizes.

A Hindi play was running on the station. No background score, just nice mellow voices acting out different characters in the play. The story itself was no great shakes, but just hearing it without a break, with no effort to sell me something was such an enchanting experience.

And that's what's happening elsewhere as well. I find myself gravitating more and more towards listening to the Doordarshan and BBC news, rather than the thousands of channels for which each story is 'breaking' all the time. Same sensational statements repeated again and again with no substance.

I was watching a channel yesterday which said Modi will give out bonuses to BJP workers. 16 times. In 2 minutes. Once every 7.5 seconds. Go figure.

 And the debates! Don't even get me started. If we tried to debate like that in school, we would've been kicked off the stage and probably been made to stand outside class for a while, a long while. Screaming, scratching, drowning out the opponents (enemies?), not interested in what was being said - as long as it was loud enough.

I think it is time for someone to break the clutter with a well thought out program of debate. A show where you just have two participants, a well defined topic and a provision for blocking out one person when the other speaks. Let's just get the actual opinions on the topics with no provision for questioning. 

So in a decade and a half, Vividhbharti and DoorDarshan are making a return to my mindspace. Not for any great quality, but just for peace.

Am I growing old? Or is the cacophony just too much already.