Television, the OG brain-drainer

Once upon a cable revolution, the television was the idiot box - the OG glowing rectangle that supposedly liquefied young minds faster than 2-min noodles (considered wholesome during those pre-'body-is-a-temple' days). Parents wagged fingers, teachers issued stern warnings, and pundits in papers (they hardly appeared on TV) muttered about civilisation's decline as kids sat hypnotised by cartoons, serials and mesmeric MTV. The TV was the brain-drainer, mush-maker.

Fast forward a generation, and TV's cultural nobility. Parents once shouted, 'Go outside!' Today's lot pleads, 'Beta, stop scrolling, and let's watch this documentary on Chandragupta Maurya narrated by Dino Morea.' The TV's now what the book was - a glowing hearth of curated wisdom, binge-worthy prestige dramas, and soothing cultural shows with optional subtitles. The bad, old boob tube has become a sanctuary of family bonding, intellectual enrichment, with no qualms about kids having separate TV sets in their rooms - if only to wean them off soul-sucking doomscrolls and clickbaits. Once mocked as cultural junk food, now rebranded as artisanal sourdough, doordarshan has become nazdeek drishti, the wise uncle youngsters should spend more time with. Who knows? One day when AR-VR becomes ubiquitous, grown-ups may yearn for their kids to be hooked to 'educative-informative' mobile phones.