Sundays: Yesterday and today

We look back at some of the things we miss about our beloved holiday

Representational picture

Getting up early to watch television
Back in the late 80's and 90's, there was only Doordarshan, but still there was plenty to look forward to on a Sunday morning -- Ramayana, Mahabharata, the regional language film, Jungle Book, and so on. In stark contrast, today there are 100 hundreds of channels, but nothing to get excited about. The same films keep playing on channels every Sunday, week after week, month after month, year after year. Thanks to these repeat telecasts, even classic flicks are losing their lustre.

If watching repeat of films wasn't bad enough, re-runs of so called ‘reality' shows also keep television channels occupied and bore you to death. Satyamev Jayate is a welcome relief, but it's only one silver lining among the clouds.

Watching kids fly paper airplanes
Twenty years back, paper play wasn't considered something bad, and kids could enjoy their flights of fantasy. During rains, the planes were replaced by boats, but the excitement level remained the same. In today's times, when saving paper has become of utmost importance and most children don't even know how to make a paper plane or a boat, it's poignant to recall those good old, innocent days.

Travelling in local trains to meet friends and relatives
Once upon a time, Sunday was when you could go out to catch up with faraway acquaintances. Doing that in the current scenario would be a big risk though. Thanks to the railways' mega and jumbo blocks undertaken for maintenance reasons, most people prefer to stay indoor these days, or rather are forced to. If you do step out and take a local, you'll either get ‘blocked' somewhere in between or will end up getting exhausted by the time you reach your desired destination.

Watching ‘real' cricket
Yes, you read it right. With cricketers popping out of our television sets almost every day, we would prefer a break from their daily soap operas on Sunday. Gone are the days when we would excitedly look forward to a cricket match, which was strategically scheduled on the holiday, so that you can sit back, relax and have some fun with your family and friend. Today's T20 matches played day in and day out are no match to the excitement and passion with which the sport was followed in those Sundays.

Listening to FM radio
If you really want to listen to music, an FM station isn't the right place. Stick to the MP3 player. Tune into any frequency, and you will have to put with RJs' gags, which are anything but funny. If you indeed get to listen to some songs, and good ones at that, consider yourself lucky. Whatever happened to the days when radio stations believed in playing as many songs as possible and the RJ was content being an announcer.