and I immediately wanted to scream “BANTAAA??”(in Kannada) … (according to my Hindi speaking friends it was AAYA KYAA?? in their respective households) …. .. brought this up during lunch at work today and everyone had their own stories to tell about the “ANTENNA”. The crowning accessory of every TV owning home in the 80’s and 90’s.
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| The Antenna that brought back memories |
Each story was more hilarious than the previous one. Everyone seems to remember manually turning it 1 millimetre at a time so that we could get a CLEAR SIGNAL. So the routine was as follows …. switch the TV on…. if the signal is not clear run to the terrace …. climb the ledge and hang on for dear life … brave the raw earthly elements namely the sun, the wind, the thunder , the lightning (I may be completely exaggerating here 
…… ) move the antenna one mm to the right …. scream … BANTAAA?? … if the answer was in the negative … you move it another millimetre…. if the signal quality worsens then you start turning it mm by mm in the opposite direction ….. then when you hear a positive response to you AAYA KYAA’s .. you run downstairs and watch Chitrahaar…
…… ) move the antenna one mm to the right …. scream … BANTAAA?? … if the answer was in the negative … you move it another millimetre…. if the signal quality worsens then you start turning it mm by mm in the opposite direction ….. then when you hear a positive response to you AAYA KYAA’s .. you run downstairs and watch Chitrahaar…
Imagine as you plonk down in front of the TV to watch Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan …. a naughty gust of wind would change the painstakingly-checked-rechecked-triplechecked-antenna-co-ordinates and all hell would break loose …………. The drama that unfolded after this would be equally worthy of being directed by the dear Mr.Ramanand Sagar himself………. remember when the two arrows would take up an entire serial slot of time to collide with each other in mid-air and nullify each others effects….. and both parties who let the arrows loose would dramatically say “Chee” and slap their thighs 
I went to the terrace and consciously scanned the rooftops in my neighbourhood. All that I saw were a range of Dish TVs , Tata Sky antennas…………………… Finally found one house at a distance that still housed the old antenna but in a poor condition.
On that note …… BANTAAAA????
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