Story of My Childhood

I am sure what I am going to put it down can make you identify with me-even if not completely, to a certain extent!  Because I share a similar fate with many of you.  While I can't deny the fact that many of you would have experienced life worse than mine, I measure my difficulties in my own metrics. 

Here, upon some striking of  memories, I have been taken back to the time when the machine so called TV was as rare as gem. Bound by the shackles of  poverty, I couldn't stop but  possess a  passionate  desire for a "Colour TV"-the smartest and standard one of that time.  Or else, the trend  of that  time was  possessing a Black and White TV.  A  Cathode Ray run ,  flat but one  which would mean a great asset. Only a  few  people who were sided by a a good fate  would afford to own it in their home. And people like us, abandoned by such blessing would just  afford to flock to watch it. That too, the consent of the owner at their own will to let us in was very important.

In the entire  village where I belong, there was a single household which owned a Colour TV then,  and would allow us  to watch after making  payment of Nu.5. We were played Nepali Movies. Rajesh Hamal, Nikhil Upreti and the likes would entertain us every evening and every night during the weekends like the teachers would engage us  in the weeks. The influence the movies watched at other's home was great. Class gossips then used  be all about movies and only movies. Oh! how I waited for the next day to narrate the happenings of the movies! 

 As soon as classes ended , into the shops-like a desperate beggar, I would hurry myself in  search of a  good CD (We used to call it "cassette"). What was given to me for buying some eatables during school time, I would use it in taking CDs on hire.  Oh, yes, this was later on when the time changed but the kind of life I had to carry on was still unchanged. Poverty would not leave us just like our  desires to watch TV. 

The unfounded influence brought by the eagerness for watching a TV would quite big in my life. Every evening, as soon as school was over, I was motivated to work in the kitchen to help mum cook and do the dishes. Oh my God!Such a pleasant activeness and energy! My mum and a few fellow villagers would be eagerly waiting in hurry for rushing into Aum Passang' house- where Colour TV was. Just Nu 5 would help us enter the house and that Nu 5 would come from thriftiness. I would not eat anything in the school during lunch but would save for watching CD in the evening.
Even the riskiest part of my life was when I grew up watching TV and craze for watching more was felt. Those days elephants used to roam our places like hooligans do in Thimphu Town. What was fear infront of the desire and craze for watching TV? Nothing!There stood a solid man from withing me that encouraged me to escape from home to watch TV in the neighbouthood. A friend and I would make a good partner in crime and sneak into the house where TV was played to entertain. Ofcourse, atleast at this time, whe didn't have to pay but we were required to get our own CDs if we wanted to watch something of our choice.