TVs while growing up

In years gone by, when we were all growing up in India in the 1980s, do you remember how you saw your TV?  Not everyone had a TV at home.  Only some had it.  And some of us would go to neighbor’s house to watch that odd movie.  Remember?  I am sure everyone would remember the time when your household got their first black & white TV!  Do you remember?  Which TV was it?

I still remember.  Our 1st and only B&W TV was EC TV.  We had just returned from Haridwar when we came home to see this TV that my Dad had bought as a surprise for all of us.  The program that we had on was Krishi Darshan – a program for the farmers.  There were only a few programs that you would get on the TV: Samachar (News) – both in Hindi and English; Chitrahaar (movie songs – MOST popular program); the Sunday movie (do you remember the movie that was always shown during a solar eclipse? for answer look below somewhere); and the Samachar.

The year end New Year’s program was really awaited.  We would all wait to see that program.  And everytime it would be a let down… not even half as exciting as it was made out to be.  I still remember the one where the celebrities came up dressed as someone different – Kiran Bedi had come up dressed up as a village lass.

Which were the TV brand which people bought?

Weston and Beltek were very popular!  ECTV was a government brand whose quality was extremely good!  We bought this both, for B&W and the Color TV (our first color TV).

Salora TV, Oscar TV (?)

The movie shown most (I think all) number of times during a solar eclipse was Chupke Chupke with Dharmendra, Sharmila Tagore and Amitabh Bachchan.

Which did you buy?