Sarabhai vs Sarabhai to Khujli, web is inviting unique content. Does that mean television is dead?

Recently, a friend recommended I go online to watch Khujli, a short film starring Jackie Shroff and Neena Gupta as a couple that finds a pair of pink handcuffs in their son’s bedroom and decides to take inspiration from 50 Shades of Grey. I followed it up with Tisca Chopra-starrer Chutney and a few others, till I couldn’t care less about whether there was anything worth watching on television.

My relationship with Hindi soaps has been going downhill for a several years, since every serial that showed promise gradually turned into a “saas-bahu” tale. So, now, I don’t even start watching since I’m sure of being let down. The Pakistani serials were interesting for a while, even prompting me to binge-watch them online, till I got tired of the second wife theme in most of them. I get drawn in when Bigg Boss comes around, but this season, even charismatic good-looker Salman Khan couldn’t keep me hooked for long. But, since former colleagues and friends insist I keep in touch so I can join in for the gossip sessions, I follow it to an extent.

My low standards of television viewing established, I still maintain that there’s really not much to keep me interested anymore. As for talk shows, the promotion-driven element ensures the celebrities rarely have anything new to say as they go studio to studio. It’s ironic that in the old days, when there was only Doordarshan, we had so much to watch, but it’s now just the reverse. Malgudi Days, Tamas, Idhar Udhar are shows we still enjoy going back to, despite the decades that have piled up in between.

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Even the news has lost its bite. Like me, most people I know, are tired of watching television debates or talking heads that specialise in shouting each other down, leading nowhere. It’s just enough to get the headlines and move on to other sources for actual analysis.

But this whine about lack of choices on television is not necessarily a bad thing. Instead of soaps, I get recommendations for TED talks and documentaries that I can watch online. And if I’ve recently discovered Gossip Girls, Netflix has the entire bank of episodes. There’s the third season of Grace and Frankie, starring Jane Fonda and Martin Sheen, besides the hugely popular Crown. Who even needs TV? Koffee with Karan was fun, but you could just catch the episodes on your smartphone. A friend says her daughter loves watching anime, besides tuning into the BBC app on their smart TV.

In fact, there’s so much to watch out there, it makes for a neverending playlist, except very little of it belongs on the idiot box. As production houses and channels dish out trash as an excuse for what viewers want, a new generation is discovering how liberating it is to finally control their viewing preferences. Ánd nobody’s complaining!

(The writer is an editorial consultant and co-founder of The Goodwill Project. She tweets @anuvee) Views expressed are personal.