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Sylvia Khan

View and let view

I'd returned home after running an errand and opened the door, my mind on other things. There they lay, my family, arrayed unseemly and unmoving all over my elegant sitting room, staring at the box. I stood at the entrance, frozen by the sight of people in, or nearing their prime, reduced to log status by stuff that was clearly made with some lower life form in mind.

Steps had to be taken. I took them.

I walked firmly upto the box and, with a splendid display of bravery, turned it off. I firmly announced that there would be no TV viewing for the under-10s on schooldays. And, since the under-10s couldn't be penned up in their quarters, the box would cease to glow for all of us. Too much violence, too much sex and too many nauseating Hindi-movie dance sequences flooded prime box time. So, sorry, but no.

There was an initial shocked silence -- it looked like Mama was getting out of control or, perhaps, they hadn't heard right. Then the phalanx split up, to make their attack more powerful.

The under-10s: "I want! I want! I want!"

The over-10s : "Why on earth not? They watch you guys fight all the time. TV's not more violent than that!"

Unfair, definitely. Untrue, perhaps. But certainly an opinion.

The under-10s bash on: "I'm going to do my big crying! YAAAAAAH!"

The over-10s continue: "Why are you getting so protective all of a sudden? There you go again, Mama, being unrealistic and escapist! How are you going to protect them when reality leaps out and grabs them by the throat?"

I wonder idly about the form reality would assume. Dismembering members of the mafia, causing cars and heads to explode with equal élan? Un or barely clad buxom brunettes touching base with a pelvic thrust?

The over-10s sight new pastures: "Why weren't you so protective of us ? I knew it at all along! See that? All aging parents value their last-born far above first-born!"

The under-10s invoke support from the maid: "Anita, Mama ko bolo! Anita, Mama kharaab hai (Anita, tell Mama. Anita, Mama's bad!)!"

I was in the now-familiar position of wondering whether it was worth the breath spent on the words. There are things the strong parent would do. Put the parental foot down firmly, for example. Brandish the ace of trumps -- this is my house and my TV and it's going to stay off when I say so. Schoolyard overtones of "It's my ball and I wont let you play," forced me to scratch that.

I looked around helplessly for my husband. A large undulation the sofa speaks up, "Turn the damn TV on! It was just getting to the good stuff!" I'd found the person, but hardly the support I'd been looking for.

I'd taken the first step, alone. It looked like I would have to continue the entire walk by myself.

"I'm not having these children watch that bilge!" I said, directing a 'you-should-have-known-better' glare at my husband.

"It's only a bit of gang warfare, they know all about that already..." the other half of the establishment protested. My three-year-old daughter brandished a box of chocolate at me, "Dishum! Dishum! You're dead, Mama! You're dead!" she shrieked with glee.

I was now getting really angry. "Is that what you want for your daughter?" I shrieked back. "It's just a bit of fun," he said weakly. "Fun for whom?" I raged, "Saddam Hussein? Al Capone?"

"Mama, please calm down!" my eldest daughter tried soothingly, "We are all just lying around relaxing, having a bit of family togetherness. You know, family fun?"

"How dare you tell me to calm down, you... you destroyer of the innocent mind! Leader astray of the young! You turner on of televisions! And what kind of family togetherness excludes the mother?" I shrieked, in a final burst of reason.

All these finer points zipped past my son. He got down to basics.

"Mama, if you and Dad weren't so terminally tight-fisted, we could pretend to be normal people and have a separate box for ourselves. It makes sense. There are more of us, our collective analytical capacity is far more than yours, we have decided that we can't put up with any more of this fascism. We need our own TV!"

It probably did make sense to him, or even them. A sort of view and let view. I didn't really mind giving them a set of their own. It would certainly make my life much simpler. No more screaming over which channel to watch, who's going to have charge of the remote or attempting to communicate with members of my family strictly during commercial breaks. Tempting, but not enough.

"What? Spend Rs 25,000 to continue the grand tradition of overindulging the kids? Think again," I said.

"Mama, I don't see why we shouldn't have our own set -- you do!" some one smartly pointed out. "You hardly watch anything -- why should you have a set of your own? Give us that set, or let us watch what we like in your room."

"That makes sense," my soon-to-be-a-thing-of-the-past husband pipes up in relief, thinking he can now go back peacefully to the mindless violence I'd saved him from for the last 10 minutes or so. Take over my room, my sanctuary from the mayhem that is my everyday life? Unthinkable, impossible, absolutely out. "Over my dead body," I say firmly.

They give me a collective 'if-need-be' look.

I now being to wonder if a television set would stand up in court as mitigating circumstances in a trial for mass murder.

Something had to give. There were more of them, and I was tired.

"Well, let me see," I started thoughtfully.

The Huns I pretend are my family, cheered.

"Great, Mama! Good choice!"

"Clever girl, Ma!"

"Lucky thing! You got to keep your room!"

Amid cheers and many slaps on the back for me, my television set was quickly carried out of my area into their own. All that excitement, and the speed at which it happened, had me gasping for air and confused. I sat down and took an analysis break.

The facts: I had lost my TV set

I still had my room

I had not killed my children.

My children had not killed me.

So that was all right.

As time goes by, we have fallen into a pattern. My husband and the older kids watch mindless sex and violence on what use to be my box, in the kids' area. The babies and I watch mindless violence on the cartoon channel, and sharks mating on Discovery, in the sitting room.

Not much has changed, except that I can longer watch old Christie or Hitchcock movies in the quiet and solitude of my bedroom. I guess that's a small price to pay...

I just need to work out what exactly I'm paying for.

Montage: Rajesh Karkera