DirecTV has a new desi channel on Channel # 2008 – Sahara Filmy. No message on voice machine this time, so discovered this one flipping channels. And this was my lucky day too, because I generally don’t channel-flip. I just watch one channel. And attain nirvana. So easy.

From what I’ve watched of it, Filmy has movies, and a “Chitrahar-ish” program called “Aunty Break Fail”. Last night as I watched the progam, it played a number of good songs, including some from films like “Dil Chahta Hai”, Lakshya, Don, “Kabhi alvida na kehna” etc. However they seemed to have a thing for repeating songs. In the hour that I watched they repeated the song “Piya, Piya” 4 times. It’s sung by Priti-Pinki – don’t remember the film, and while it is a catchy number, and displays a prancing Preiti and a then-thin Rani, 4 times is a bit much (even for goggle-eyed desi TV viewers in far-off lands).

Aunty Break Fail though seems to be a smart lady. She’s portrayed as a “healthy” desi woman in rodeo attire and sports a gun, which she uses to kill annoying ads/people in the ads.

An ad-less program – I get it.

Since I fit the stereotypical profile of a rabid desi in search of ever more desi programming on TV, I scrabbled around the internet trying to get more information about their programming. Filmy’s website though doesn’t have much information, and offered up a program schedule for August. Hmmph ! Why can’t supposed world leaders in television keep their web-sites up-to-date ?

Much as I love NDTV, their filmi coverage is the pits. They do their “Page 3 “ thing covering all the parties, events, fashion weeks, but when it comes to films, they really under-do it. You’ve got desi films spilling out of the industry like an overflowing popcorn machine. Every Ram, Shyam and Ghanshyam unworthy of his salt makes one these days. There are dozens available on DVD which I haven’t even heard of – many of them not even making it into the theatres. One would think this a golden opportunity to get into some serious movie reviewing and ripping-into-shreds frenzy (more of the latter seeing the quality).

Back to Filmy – I do like their tag-line : “Ma kasam filmy hai”.

Categories : _television , _india