We are the last of the PTV generation; the last
ones from the days when even the news bulletins were all merry & tranquil.
Our TV was all universal nothing PG about it. 8 to 9 really meant something.
There was a ghost who use to wear a pair of spectacles and the best game show
on TV was Neelaam Ghar. PTV was PTV because it never cared for what people
wanted to see, it only produced the content that was fit for the people to see.
Advertisements use to sell products not a certain lifestyle. Our identity was
distinct not confused and fused like today. Like today even then there was a
Pakistan that existed only in some drawing rooms or in some posh farm houses or
on a private beach in Karachi but it was not imitated by the others like it is
imitated today by the university going, middle class boys and girls. You and I
can be anything. You and I can be everything. A plate full of fries shared by
many but still it was enough to satisfy. Long before all the Mamas and Papas
lived Um’aans & Babas. There was no thing called laid-back or tech
parenting. They just never seized to be parents. It was a world, of humans, by
humans and for humans. Real humans interacted real humans nothing virtual about
it. One can touch and smell words and they meant something. Like any age it had
its downsides, its dark corners but whatever good existed was valued and
cheered. Junaid and Alamgir use to sing and Edhi was alive. Women were
beautiful and real. They still have not discovered that the women empowerment
is cannot be achieved through education and changing the perception of the
society towards women but through baring midriff or by shunning dupata. Burqa cladded
women and beard wearing men were not profiled. Happiness existed in its truest
and rawest form- original not cosmetic. It was easier to be a kid; knowing less
and wanting lesser. Those were simpler days and the lives were simpler too.
Today when PTV is surviving on those Rupees 50 that it gets from the
electricity bill and is dying a gradual and miserable death, we the last of its
generation are like that helpless kid who has just lost his favorite toy, his
best friend but he cannot do nothing about it as deep in his heart he knows
that he is the one who broke it. I say my sorry and I accept it is I who has
failed you, my dear PTV. It is I who wanted more and more, it is I who was not
true to what he was taught, it is I who got selfish. It is I who killed
everything that was good about my generation and my dear PTV you are the first casualty.