When Sunday evenings meant Bengali classics on Doordarshan – GetBengal story
Long before the internet personalized entertainment into solitary corners of mobile screens and binge-watch sessions came to Bengali households, Sunday evenings used to share a collective ritual every week in the living room…sitting with everyone in the family with tea and pakora and a flickering television set in the living room.
Between the late 1970s and the 1990s, Sunday evenings in Bengal were synonymous with one thing: Doordarshan's telecast of Bengali classics. As the sun sets and the streetlamps began to flicker alive, families across the city would slowly gather to enjoy the Bengli movie show that used to come on DD Bangla.
Doordarshan, India's public service broadcaster, played a curatorial role in bringing Bengali parallel cinema into the life of ordinary people. Sunday evening movie screening was not only a movie show but was an event. Members of the families coordinated their chores around the showtime. The female members of the family would finish cooking early. Sometimes, they had to adjust the antenna to avoid “snow” on the screen. Children would be shushed and sometimes bribed with chocolate or “mishti” to sit quietly. In many homes, it was the first time people encountered the works of Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, and Tapan Sinha — legends of Indian cinema who painted the Bengali soul with strokes of realism, lyricism, and angst.
Post-screening discussions often spilled into para addas — street-corner chats with friends over tea and cigarettes. Opinions were shared with intensity - Was Apu’s journey in Pather Panchali a reflection of poverty or poetic destiny? Was Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara too radical for its time, or just radical enough?
Unfortunately like all rituals, this too began to fade.
By the late '90s and early 2000s, as cable TV exploded and satellite channels fought for TRPs, the soft, thoughtful Sunday film was replaced by glossier programming. Families stopped watching together. The Dyanora and Onida TVs were replaced by LCD /LED screens, and slowly, the sacred hush of Sunday evenings disappeared.
In a time when attention is currency and content is endless, the slow, deliberate magic of Doordarshan’s Bengali Sundays serves as a reminder — that cinema is not always about escapism. Sometimes, it is about returning — to ourselves, to our roots, to a living room filled with silence and stories.
