IELTS and Tele-stress

TV trouble

‘ Hi doc , I hope inspite of your busy schedule you get time to watch some TV . ‘ I wanted to shake my head vigorously and say no but the IELTS examiner never gave me a chance . ‘ You have a minute to prepare and talk about a TV show, any programme that you enjoyed watching recently and what you learnt from it ‘ She gave me a pencil and a paper to jot down my thoughts , and said for the next 1 minute she wouldn’t interrupt , but after she indicates , I’d have to speak for atleast 3 minutes . Though she was very polite , to me , at that point in time it sounded like ‘ You’re finished doc. Better luck next time ‘

I needed to clear the IELTS exam , https://www.britishcouncil.in/exam/ielts which tests proficiency in English . I had an opportunity for a temporary job in the UK with the NHS for which this was a must-have , to be eligible for a visa . My wife had finished her exam just the previous day and the only advice she gave me was to speak clearly and confidently on whatever topic was given , and never to ask for a different topic . But how  , I hadn’t had a TV for almost a decade and a half . And how am I expected to speak about a programme which can be only watched on something that hasn’t been in my possession for more than a decade ? Ridiculous , I thought . I was worried . A few friends and colleagues were extremely good with their English but still didn’t clear it in the first attempt . I was gonna join that list , I knew . Applying again for an exam wasn’t a big deal , but what hurt was the money I’d lose , which in those days , seemed like a mini-fortune . I looked at the timer , 20 seconds gone .

‘I give up . I’ll ask her politely to give me a different topic .’ But I remembered the wife’s advice never to ask for a change of topic . ‘ Or I’ll make up some show and talk . All that matters is I talk , even if the programme is fictional . ‘ But to become a script writer within 40 seconds , I realized that day , was almost impossible . I gave up , again , twice within half a minute . I accepted my fate , dropped the pencil on the paper , leaned back into my chair , and decided to tell the examiner that I was done . ‘ This is not fair Lord , you should not allow me to be tortured like this .’  With just 10 seconds left on the clock , out of the blue , I had a big smile on my face and when she said ‘ Your time starts now ‘ I kept talking , and talking , and talking .

16 years ago , I had just cleared my MBBS , and was required to work two years in a rural area . This was a tribal belt in Orissa , now Odisha , along the beautiful eastern coast of india . It was a small hospital , with just about basic primary care available for about 50  in-patients . Forget mobile and internet services , the village did not even have proper telecommunication services . The landlines would frequently go dead , and sometimes there was no way of being in touch with the outside world . My main mode of communication became letters , yes , the ancient hand-written letters . I once wrote to a friend working in a fairly large town in Maharashtra , a state in central India , who called me on the office landline just to say ‘ Please don’t do this to me . I will call whenever I can , but I just cant write letters man , I’m sorry ‘ .

I somehow managed to finish the next 2 years of my bond , then got into postgraduate training where there was no chance of watching any TV shows . Given a choice between grabbing a quick meal and a short nap , I’d always go for the latter . I got married , and my wife too was into her PG training so there was no need for a TV , or rather there was no time for one . A few years later , an uncle , who was visiting us , brought us his old TV  . My eldest, hardly 5 and his siblings  were getting addicted to the cartoon shows , so one fine day , I unplugged the cable and stored the idiot box away in the store . The TV was off , almost as quickly as it came . I called my uncle , and told him to take the TV back whenever he could . There were some fireworks at home initially , both from the kids and the wife . I too missed watching my favourite sports channels , but I wasn’t going to go back on my decision . No TV means No TV , I yelled at the kids . And slowly we managed to live without one . Everyone , including me , forgot about it .

Staring at the blank paper infront of me with the clock ticking away , I was kicking myself ‘ Atleast had I not packed that TV away , maybe I could have answered this lady’s question .’ How foolish of me . How impulsive of me to unplug it , I thought .

Back in Orissa , as a young doctor , I was taken care of quite well . I was provided accommodation within the hospital campus , a nice 2 bedroom house about a minute’s uphill walk from my place of work . And being the only resident doctor , I was given a TV too , the accountant explained . He also said he had recently learned that a TV could be called a tele or a telly as well . It was actually bought for the guest house , but since hardly anyone came visiting , I could keep the ‘tele’ in my house , he said . I was happy , atleast after work I could while away the time I thought . I couldn’t be more wrong . That TV was old , and had a temperamental remote . I tried changing the batteries , which took me two days to get coz they had to be got from the nearest town about an hour away . Still it wouldn’t work . And I had a vast choice of watching 2 channels !! Actually 4 , but at a given point in time only 2 channels could be aired , the lone cable TV provider would say . Frequent power cuts were the norm .  DD national , ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DD_National ) DD Oriya , ETV Oriya and Zee Cinema – and only 2 of these would be accessible . When a friend visited , he couldn’t help but say ‘ Man , I haven’t watched DD for years now , infact I even forgot it existed , and here you are eagerly waiting for the electricity to be restored so you could watch that  channel !!? ‘ . DD1 , I remember as a kid , was full of wonderful programmes like Malgudi days , Fauji (a show which made a certain SRK famous much before he became known as the ‘ baadshah of bollywood ‘), Surabhi , Mowgli on Sundays ( I can still easily sing the title-song ‘ Jungle Jungle baat chali hai’ though I haven’t heard it for years ) and the likes , but with the cable Tv boom of the 90’s , there was no doubt that it was well and truly past its prime . I’m not sure if these programmes were still being shown , but among the 2 chosen channels at a given point in time , DD1 would not always make the cut in the village . The lone cable operator would largely prefer to play the Oriya channels .’ Beggars cant be choosers , my friend . This is not the normal world . I’m in a punishment posting here , I don’t even know how I’m surviving , I already have had enough with this good-for-nothing TV  ,  so please don’t add to my ‘tele-stress’ ‘ I growled at him .

There was this particular serial in ETV Oriya , a never-ending melodramatic soap opera called ‘ Bhagyavidhaata’ that would be aired on weekdays . That was a massive hit with the staff . The locals had apparently warned the only cable TV provider in the village that if the serial wasn’t aired daily , he would be in trouble . Everyday somebody or the other would discuss the twists and turns , and try and guess what would happen next . Slowly , I too started watching and following it regularly , not so much because I loved it but because there was nothing else to do . And since the remote would always give trouble , I would just leave the channel on and not bother changing it . My standard prayer before going to bed would be along these lines ‘ Lord , first of all , you bring me to a God-forsaken place , outside of work there’s nothing to do here , I can’t even be in touch with others except through letters which take a few days to reach , and as if all this wasn’t enough , you give me a terrible TV, a real useless idiot box , that doesn’t even have a proper remote . Somehow help me survive and get through this ordeal . But this is not fair Lord , you should not allow me to be tortured like this .’

The staff were extremely helpful and supportive and that was a huge bonus , in the evenings I started playing badminton in a make shift open-area court , sometimes exploring the local area on foot , and even went trekking with some of the staff who knew the hills inside out . Most of the patients there were very poor but would be extremely grateful when they were ready to go home from the hospital . Inspite of no mobile or internet , life wasn’t so bad. It was no longer difficult to while away the time . And slowly I started enjoying my time there . So much so that when it was time for me to leave , I wondered if there was any way I could extend my stay .

And that’s when I suddenly remembered, unexpectedly , with 10 seconds left on the clock , a good-for-nothing TV , and its vast repertoire of 2 channels . The title song of ‘ Bhagyavidhaata ‘ was playing in my head . I didn’t need the pencil and the paper . I could remember most of the story , and though I didn’t remember all the characters names , I replaced them with the names of the staff who I was working with in the hospital there . And I kept talking , and talking , and talking . The examiner never told me whether I did well or not , but when she said ‘ OK thank you , that’s enough ‘ I was very confident that I would definitely clear IELTS .

I many times complained , sometimes vehemently , to myself my parents and my friends , about the time I had to spend in that remote tribal village , but I remind myself that I got a UK work permit only because of my stint there . If not for that temperamental TV , I’m sure I’d have had to sit the IELTS again . I’m still very much in touch with the hospital staff . The village has greatly improved , they now have mobile and internet services , and can watch many more channels on the television thanks to their dish tv connections  . That TV in the doctors accommodation has been condemned ,  I learnt , but long before that , it had helped a just-passed out young doctor become fluent in Oriya , a language that I can still speak quite comfortably and more importantly taught me an even bigger lesson – you and I may be going through some terrible times , but just hang on in there , for you never know how and when this seemingly horrible experience would come to your rescue later on in life . Something that you and I maybe bitterly complaining about now , however irritating and frustrating it may seem at present , may , who knows , just turn out to be an experience you’d be grateful for years later , for teaching , mentoring and enlightening you in the best way possible with real-time practical experience and useful life-lessons . I almost forgot about the whole incident , but recently when I saw a colleagues ‘IELTS’ coffee mug in the office , I gladly remembered this as-it-happened story spanning almost two decades , all thanks to a ‘punishment’ posting  in a remote village , coupled with a useless good-for-nothing  TV and a fair dose of ‘ tele – stress ‘ .