Our cable operator Babu is an amiable despot with a monopoly of television life in our locality.  From his headquarters a thick black cable comes looping over the tallest branches of the avenue trees. It reaches the water tank on our roof, snakes down the wall and goes through a hole in the window frame to connect to our television set.  He makes the monthly rounds to collect his “fees”.
Babu is tall and thick set, his hair is oiled and neatly combed, a bushy moustache lending an aggressive touch to a pleasant face.  His visits take a predictable turn. I invite him in to check the channels that have fuzzy pictures. He slips off his worn sandals and pads into the house. We go over the channels, clicking the remote. For two days Vishwanathan Anand remained open-mouthed on the screen with the caption, “Anand Unplugged.” Babu attributes this to the malefic influence of satellites. When they are right overhead, he assures me, all will be well again.
I complain that at crucial moments; during a cricket match for example, the entire transmission flickers off, displaying a snowstorm and leaving us in suspense about the fate of Dhoni's soaring ball. Babu then makes a tactical error by claiming that when he “tunes” the image he naturally has to take out some connections.
Why do we have fewer channels than the number he promised? Babu replies, “Because we’ll give you many more channels, but slots have to be found for them, codes for others.” Undeterred, I point out that some channels are doubled. I demonstrate with the remote. He looks hurt and says “They are not double -double, Amma. They are repeats.”
Babu has a resonant voice. When arguing, he does not sound angry, but the decibel count goes up. Repetition wins arguments for him. At this point he sounds deafening. I find myself unconsciously pointing the remote at him and pressing the volume control to lower the sound. Babu gently takes the remote from me and says, “You really don’t understand the TV at all. That is why you ask all these questions. See, you still don't know that you must point the remote at the TV to lower the volume.” I acknowledge defeat and quieten him in the best way possible, by paying him his “fees”.