Thadassam

Thadassam

Malayalam television was not as happening in the early 1990s as it is today. All we had was DD Malayalam. At times, the transmission used to be disrupted. And the screen which used to come was named ‘Thadassam’ J. It means interruption. Unlike today, TV did not cause thadassam to our lives however.

   Once a week, there were ‘thiranottam’ (letters from the viewers), and ‘Chithrageetham’ ( Song on demand). ‘Varthakal ‘ (news) was exactly half an hour unlike today when every minute is news!

There were very few Ads. Some of the olden serials were ‘Innocent Kathakal’’, ‘Mahatma Gandhi Colony’, ‘Nishagandhi’ , and ‘Shamana thaalam’ (One or at the max two in a day). To be fair to them, some of them were good. A defining moment in Malayalam television was when we got our own never ending serial called ‘Sthree’ which had perennially elongated episodes. Whatever happened after that emulated ‘Sthree’ and is effectively blocking the prime time malayalee television these days.

    There were a slew of epics too – Shri Krishna, Jai Hanuman, Ohm Namah Shivaya and so on which typically started and ended with teen teen ti teen (cos Britannia were the sponsors) ;).

Keywords: DD Malayalam, Kerala, Malayalam television, Malayalam, Malayalam blog, Kerala blog, mallu blog, funny mallu blog, funny malayalam blog