LIVE FROM SATELLITE .... VISHU, APRIL 1993

Vishu is the most auspicious day for Malayalees. And for Asianet and yours faithfully in particular, Vishu of 1993 was more auspecious.

So far, Ekran satellite was beaming only the staircase... the color bars at 754MHz. It was on that day, Asianet started full time beaming in Malayalam language.

We, the technocrats in Trivandrum were at Headend from the previous night. All equipments including the Dish antenna was cleaned, all connectioned double and triple checked, and even the (late) Krishnakumar did some chanting of the scripts. Shyam, Hari and Anilan did the supports. P.R Krishnakumar had some superstitions- so he brought some VHS tapes to warm up the situation.

The Vishu day..... Chandrasekharan sir and all of us reached the headend early in the morning. Sasikumar sir and family came later. The time was creeping very slow. When the minute hand touched 7.59, Chandrasekharan sir asked me to switch on the system.

With trembling fingers, I did the "Switch on". There was the count-down on the TV Screen - all of us counted down the seconds... finally zero.. and the now famous 3-D animated Asianet logo appreared with the theme music, and finally the title song "Shyama Sundara Kera Kedara Bhoomi". All of us hugged each other as if we had launched a satellite to the moon.

Similar scenes happened at Ernakulam with Steve and co. on the helm and at Calicut (Vadakara) by Ramesh and team. Unfortunately, at the fouth location - Pooram Ground at Trichur, signal was not recievable. Later, it was heard, when Sri. Ashok Madhavan sir, our GM(Tech) climbed on a chair to look up, our MD, Sri. Sivashankaran sir  asked in a typical musical note,  " Ashooooook, can youuuu seeeeee the satelliiiiiite nowwwww?

Tail Piece

This was at Kanakakkunnu Palace, next week.
The annual exhibition and carnival. We displayed live feed from the satellite Ekran, and kept a small sign board, "LIVE FROM SATELLITE".
One visitor looked keenly into the TV Screen, the dish the reciever.. and asked.. is this really live? we replied in unison - "Yes sir.. this is live". He was still doubtful ".....that means this man on the coconut tree preparing toddy, is he still  on coconut tree right now?"

THE INFLUX

I always amazed by the term "Conander " from my childhood days. Later, I postulated, it is the result of the symbiosis of two words, Connoisseur and Commander. I use this term with this meaning; giving utmost respect.

The first few months of Asianet went without much action, except for the small things I mentioned earlier. Then started the "Influx of the Conanders" led by Hon. M.D, Sri. Sivasankaran, followed by Sri. M.Ajayan, Sri. V. Krishnakumar,  Sri. Balagopalan, Sri. B.G Menon, Sri. Radhakrishnan et al. All had some links with Alind or SILK.

The first day of Hon. M.D in the office was a disaster.

M.D was staying at Southpark Hotel, on a temporary basis. The office arranged for M.D in Charutha was on the first floor. To make his day the most comfortable, the fan in the room was replaced with a split AC. Plus all new paraphernalia on his desk.

Before M.D Entered the room, AC was switched on. The moment he sat on the chair, AC stalled. MD in his grey safari suit sat there drenched in sweat,while we tried to make it run.

Finally, some one found out, the external unit of the AC was covered firmly with polythene sheet, to protect it from sunlight and rain!!! Good foresight by a good samaritan.

The polythene sheet was removed and AC switched on, the the machine started with a loud roar (the fan was on max) and all gadgets on the table flew in the air, including the cheap Aluminium Ash-tray.

 Hope the admin guys learned a lesson  for their rest of the lifetime that day, for buying such materials.

Sivasharkaran Sir's woes didnot end there. The worst was the telephone. The extension phone given to him worked between him and Rachana only; i.e, no outside calls. He had to come down to reception everytime Rachana paged him.

Suddenly Charutha become a place of activity, with all rooms occupied. We, the technologists had to spend days either on the road doing survey, or at Edappazhanji looking for satellites or the backyard  of Charutha, licking lactogen and watching the birds.