Life Jinga-la-la

Giving into the much over-marketing by Tata Sky, my husband finally ordered it for us, last week. He had been going around the house trilling 'Life jinga-la-la' for a long time, but I had bravely refrained from commenting on it.

He was so keen to get this set up, that once he had placed the order on the phone (on Monday), he kept calling them everyday and reminding them to come over and install it - not paying any heed to the fact that neither of us would be home on any of the weekdays.

When he finally went as far as to suggest that we stay home for half a day on Friday so that they could do the installation, I lost my cool- and asked him why we couldn't just wait one more day and get it installed on the weekend. His argument was a weakly muttered 'Life jinga-la-la?', but he did decide to wait that one more day.

The next day, the Tata Sky men landed up, and they brought with them this huge dish to put on the roof. Now, we live in an apartment and the roof is naturally a common one - hitherto untouched and pure, it offers a lovely view of the sea and is open to all who wish to take a breather at any time of the day or night - only now, it is marred by our large and ugly Tata Sky dish set up right in the center.

After the installation of the dish, Vijay came down from the roof to complain to me about the neighbours complaining.

'That old Parsi couple of the sixth floor - they think they own the building! They asked me if I had taken permission from the Society Secretary to set up our dish!'

'Well', I asked, 'did you?'

Vijay said bleatingly 'No...I didn't- would you please come with me and ask him? You're so much better at arguing'.

'No, I'm not', I said (well aware that I was arguing and thereby proving his point) 'Anyway, it's already installed now, isn't it. What's the point of asking him now? What if he says no?'

'If he says no...if he says no...I will convince him...that there is actually a way that all of us in the building can get Tata Sky through just one dish, if we all decide to subscribe to it'

I said 'that's a pretty a Big 'If'. And will that be through the dish we've already set up?'

Vijay said 'No - through another special dish we will have to buy'.

I asked 'So..how will that help him to allow us to set up the one we've already set up?'

Vijay left the room in a huff. At this point, he clearly felt his only friend in the world was the Tata Sky installer-guy, who was fiddling around and putting the final touches on the TV in the drawing room. Unfortunately, a little misunderstanding then ensued which somewhat damaged this budding friendship.

Vijay - Bhaiiyya, iss equipment ko kahan pe daalonge? TV ke upar? Shelf ke upar?
Tata Sky guy (unexpectedly and quite rudely) - Aapke upar.
Vijay (in no mood for this nonsense, drawing himself up to full six feet) - Mere upar? Kyon bhai? Kya matlab hai tumhara?
Tata Sky guy (cowering): Nahin saar. Aapke upar hai ki hum kahaan rakhen...mera aur koi matlab nahin...

Once the drama of the installation was over, we have settled down to watching television through Tata Sky.

And I really have to say, the picture is a lot clearer. It also helps to be able to see what is coming on different channels at any point of time. I earlier used to wonder if I was truly getting the max out of my TV viewing time by watching the best available program at any point of time - no more wondering about that. Now, it's wondering how there can possibly be so much crap on TV at any point of time.

The thing doesn't record, so that is one major limitation - and there is this creepy 'Tata Sky' music that plays whenever you switch to the menu to select channels. Brrrrrrrrr...

I hope I discover many other new exciting features in the thing, over a period of time. Because I now realise it was more fun watching Vijay get Tata Sky, than it is to actually watch it.

Well - I guess it's better to depend on constant entertainment from watching your Idiot, rather than your Idiot Box.

Ha Ha Ha. I really didn't mean that, hon! After all, you make my life Jinga-la-la.