Show Ration Card, Get a TV home

“Ek aam Hindustani ki zindagi mein, line main khada rahen hi zindagi hain…”

 

.. goes an Airtel ad. It further adds that things have changed and Airtel has changed the scene in the context of KBC.

 

It was circa 1990s again for me the first Sunday of April 2007 when I stood in the queue at the Public Distribution System.

 

The young, the old, the professional, the vela, the man, the woman, the housewife and her sister-in-law, the LIG household, the MIG household and the SEC A household all of them stood in the queue at the local municipal school.

 

I almost thought that the municipal elections were happening but the voter turnout seemed too good to be true. Upon investigation, it was revealed that the Rush was to collect the “free colour TV” which “Dr. Kalignar” led Government of Tamil Nadu was supplying.

 

My first reaction was that of disbelief. There has probably been no record of a Government actually sticking to pre-poll promises and here I could see people carrying home cardboard dabba.

(You must see it to believe it. Blame it on pazahaka dosham –force of habit- the men and women were carrying it the way they would carry pots of water. The analogy does not stop there- The ladies’ queue experienced the same streetfight that occurs when one of the them fills her pot out of turn from the water lorry)

 

Disbelief turned to greed when upon discreet enquiries, I got to know that my family was eligible for the “color TV” as well  and so I hopped onto the queue with a ration card in my hand. Truckload after truckload of cardboard boxes was unloaded into the building. One by one they were distributed to gleeful citizens.

 

The queue in which I stood, truly obedient to Murphy’s law, moved slower than the rest. Some were thankful for the TV, others doubted the quality of the televisions (Looking the gift horse in the mouth) few even wondering if there was any television inside the cardboard.

 

My recent tryst with analysts and analyst reports made do some back of the envelope calculations er, well without an envelope and without numbers.

 

At the end of the exercise i.e. when all households in Tamil Nadu have a television set or when the state becomes bankrupt, whichever is earlier, every citizen will have access to atleast one television. The Numero Uno Tamil television channel, the No.1 by far will extend its coverage, leadership and logical extension advertising rates and revenues.

 

Need I say more? I am hurrying to buy the shares of Sun TV.

 

P.S After waiting for more than 3 hours on a Sunday, the PDS confessed that they had run out of television sets and pleaded with the restive public to be patient till the next week when, they promised, every household will be able to carry home a TV set.

P.S 2 I am as a concession to the political party which will, hopefully, give me a TV which I do not know what to do with am not – piercing the corporate veil of Sun TV, which however has been done elsewhere in this blog.