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P. Devarajan

After four summers, the family has decided to use the spare hours to make rice karuvadams, potato chips and mango pickles.

IT'S a TV-less, serial-less summer for many in our housing society with IN Cable screening blank channels. Sports channels are out with none being able to watch the famous 418 run victory of West Indies over a pack of Australians, scared of defeat. Some good European football games have gone by and one did not see Michael Jordan wave his last bye. That has given one enough seconds, minutes and hours to read some well-written sports copies put out by AP, Reuters and others.

There was spare time to relish an AP copy, "But, at Wimbledon, curtsy takes a bow" with a crisp intro: "One of Wimbledon's most enduring traditions is finished — players will no longer have to bow or curtsy to the Royal Box at Centre Court." If the IN Cable sticks to its stance of refusing to serve its customers while charging them a monthly Rs 325, many viewers will have to bow out of the French and Wimbledon. Most of the news and serials are out giving everyone a chance to go back to Doordarshan.

The first Indian channel still seems to be doing a fair job with the newsreaders alert enough to read and not scream news-breaks or questions such as those on Star, Zee, and Aaj Tak. But my wife, Rama from Alleppey, does not feel the loss as serials on Sun, Surya (the popular Sthreejanmam) and Asianet still get beamed. To be fair, at the best of times, her viewing time is an hour per day and that excludes Mohanlal films, which cannot be missed. Mohanlal is to Rama what Sachin Tendulkar is to her son, Ganesh: `Bhagwan'. For Rama, Keralites are equally split between Mohanlal and Mammooty like they are between Communists and Congress.

Lachman Singh and his family are keen on Hindi serials though their grudge is no channel shows anything of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Madhya Pradesh except mass murders. "Humlog, apne gaon kabhi TV par nahin dekhe hain (We have never seen our villages on Indian TV channels)," complains Lachman. The Hindi channels (as one gets them in Mumbai) make up for it as it does not spend much time over the interiors of the northern belt while some four channels in Kerala take the viewer to every part of the State.

We are today in the pre-TV age of tranquillity when there were human beings and there was time to gossip and laugh. Today we know our neighbours and the doors of the four families living on the seventh floor are kept open through the day with little thought for security or privacy. Lachman Singh recently shooed away an employee of IN Cable, who had come to collect the monthly subscriptions.

"TV pe kuch dikhate nahin ho aur paise mangthe ho (You do not show anything on TV and ask for funds)," Lachman told the young fellow, who was just doing what his boss had asked him to do. Most viewers in the society have refused to pay May subscriptions and the butting could continue till the IN Cable management pulls back. As someone said, "they make money on ads and have no reason to deny us channels".

Lachman Singh is helping Rama to buy quality mangoes which are cut and put up for sun-drying on the terrace. The dried pieces are preserved in til oil for days before being consumed with curd rice. One has been spending entire mornings slicing big-size potatoes which are first boiled in hot water. A white dhoti is spread on the terrace and the cut pieces arranged in rows for a touch of sun.

Some of the neighbours have got into the business of making potato chips and while at work cross-check on the prices at which the potatoes were bought. Most of the time they score over us having struck cheaper deals which riles Rama a bit.

On making rice karuvadams (rice cakes), Rama is the acknowledged guru and the neighbours are learning the basics from her. Preparing the viscous mix of rice and sabudana over gas and then laying the mix down in small circles on plastic sheets is a demanding job. The circular pieces, laid out in long rows, have to be of the same size and should be sufficiently spaced out for a proper dry. The work of laying out the raw karuvadams has to be over by 10 in the morning as it gets too hot afterwards. Now the family is waiting on the good sense of Rama to be served with fried karuvadams to make a good lunch.

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