The Boring Saturday

The Boring Saturday

Every holiday comes with a free package of joy and thrill for everyone. All of us love to get at least a day off from the daily chores of the workload that we have, don’t we? So, naturally, a holiday is really a boon for everyone. But wait! Did I just say “for everyone”?? Then hold on! Holidays are more of a headache than a boon to the people like me, who have to struggle to find something interesting other than the daily chores of the usual work.

So, yeah! I had this weekly holiday on Saturday, and as usual, I began my struggle to find something interesting to fill in for the boredom. So, when I didn’t find anything worth a shot, I decided to settle for the television. I switched on the TV, took the remote and sprawled on the sofa set that lay across the TV.

A TV commercial showing the exclusivity of TATA SKY welcomed me. Obviously, I changed the channel and went to a comedy show channel.  With nothing new to expect from the channel, I settled for an already famous comic show. And hell man! Some poor jokes here, some poor jokes there and boring storyline was all that played for some 15 minutes. I had been an avid fan of the show, so I continued watching it and, guess what?

The track showed a typical Gujarati housewife, rushing through traffic, risking her life to deliver the lunch box containing Undhiyu (a palatable Gujarati dish) to her foodie husband. The background music and camera angles presented the scene as the life or death situation with awfully melodramatic tensed facial expressions. And bingo! The, traffic policemen caught the lady, for breaking the traffic rules and guess what? They even let her go when she explained them how important it was to deliver the lunch box to her foodie husband!

Now, if this is what we call a comic serial, then pardon me as I could only laugh on the disgusting and illogical sequence (intended to be dealt with emotionally) rather than on the poor jokes that accompanied it and were actually meant to make me laugh. I mean, where the hell do we get a policeman who will let you go without a fine for such a hilarious reason?? So, with no other option, I changed the channel.

Soul ripping tensed background music welcomed me as I saw the lady protagonist, rushing to reveal the truth about the antagonist, in another family drama. Hell, I have grown seeing her reveal truth about everyone, ever since I was a kid and have since been confused if the show is a detective series or a family drama! Well, pissed off, I changed the channel again and this time another channel welcomed me with a crime show that showed the real life daily crimes committed by the common man in India. And still, I saw what my family had repeatedly been seeing for some years now. The anchor scared the shit out of his audience as he narrated the further story in a more glorified and scary manner. And yeah, I was confused if these shows are made to educate us about the crimes happening near us or are meant as the tutorials for aspiring criminals! Frustrated, I changed the channel again.

‘IIN, I am from IIN’

The all nonsense and funny commercial was playing on the next channel. The commercial showed several people learning and educating themselves via the Idea Internet Network and emerging out as the scientists, inventing drones! I guess we don’t need all the crap IITs, NITs, IIITs and all other crap technical universities, as we have IIN to rely on, right? And yeah mind it! You can only learn if you use Idea Internet services as other internet providers are not educated enough, so make sure you buy only Idea Internet. Bullshit!

Another advertisement replaced the Idea University orientation. So, here they said that if you drink the concerned cola drink, you can easily jump out of a mountain from thousands feet of height, sitting in your jeep without dying! And how is this possible? Simple, the cola makes you fearless with its magic, wow!! So, for any task that scares the hell out of you, you only need to drink that cola and you’ll complete the task effortlessly! I guess then every engineering student should drink the same cola before exams and every Olympian should have it before a crucial game, as they will overcome their fears and emerge successful with it, right?

If this wasn’t enough, next was a promotional ad for the new show that showed two women from neighboring families fighting with spatulas and frying pans in their hands and then the awful background music asking us if the protagonist be able to get a cease fire between them. The background scores that the daily soaps use, can effortlessly work as a substitute to torture the stray dogs, or mental asylum patients instead of the electric shock therapy. They can actually drive any sane man crazy. And yeah, don’t forget the awful year leaps in these shows.

Illogical and disgusting Year leaps in daily soaps

Frustrated again, I switched to some movie channels only to get more insane. Mera Badla, Aaj Ka Gundaraaj, Betting Raja and all crap was all that they served me in the form of South Indian Cinema. 20 men flying in the air, with just a one kick from the hero, wow! Further surfing gave me Sooryavansham, Chennai Express and some repeated old classics as my only options to choose from!  I thought, getting some news updates might help but I was wrong again. The debates that the news channels serve today are more comical than a Kapil Sharma show, believe me. I should save this topic for another article so let me tell you what happened next, without getting deeper into the comic capers that the debates serve. So, I flipped though some other news channel and finally, I found something worth watching!

They were discussing the present scenario on the jobs for the engineers and other graduates with all the statistical research and data. Now as the expert on this topic was about to share his views, the anchor stopped him and took a break. F**K you TRPs.

‘Aakhir Biwi kiski hai!’

The gentleman in the TV commercial that followed after the break said. The ad was of some pressure cooker company and showed the man bragging about his wife over the delicious Gajar-Ka-Halwa that she had prepared in the cooker. Now I am again confused if the ad was to promote the company’s cookers or this guy’s wife? Like if the Halwa was tasty as your wife had prepared it, then what did the cooker had to do with it? And if the Cooker is so special, then why don’t you brag about it, leaving your wife aside? I somehow never understand the logic behind these ads. But do they actually have logic??

I was almost on my saturation point when my all hell broke loose.

This time the ad showed a poor trophy maker’s son winning trophies from his school for his academics and the pride that followed after it. Now the kid didn’t win laurels due to his hard work or intelligence guys! He won them as his mother mixed the concerned company’s spices with every dish that she served the family. Waah betaji! If this is the case, I guess everyone should only have those magical spices regularly, and India will soon produce the largest number of Scientists and Nobel Prize winners!!!!!

My saturation point was crossed, so I switched off the TV at once (thankfully I successfully resisted breaking it and shattering the crap into pieces). I was more frustrated, tired and bored than before. I needed some sleep badly as I had this bit headache after all the crap, I had witnessed. So, as I was about to lie down to sleep, my mother shouted.

‘You lazy bone! You were watching TV for whole lot of 2 hours and now you want to sleep??’ she said. ‘Have some shame at least. You have an internal backlog, do study something!’

‘But mumma, I need some refreshment,’ I tried to defend myself.

‘Isn’t 2 hours of TV enough refreshment for you??’ she shot back.

Now, how could I have explained her that watching that crap for 2 hours was more torturing than attending a disgusting 2 hour lecture of Fluid mechanics or finding the bending stresses in beams and columns???

With nothing in my defense, I surrendered and as usual, went to have my date with the Moment of Inertia again on a boring Saturday!