Chapter 12: Colour in the Wires
The summer of 1980 in Lucknow was hot and sticky, the kind of weather that made ceiling fans groan and transistor radios crackle between news bulletins. Bharat sat on the floor of his father's small home office, pencil in hand, pretending to draw. But in truth, he was listening.
Ajay was pacing. His desk was covered with circuit boards, radio shells, wires, and a dusty old television casing. On the wall behind him, a blackboard full of hand-drawn diagrams: wave signals, RGB values, and a crude sketch of a peacock.
"We have to build something better. Something our own," Ajay said aloud, though no one else was in the room except Bharat and a faint mosquito.
It had started with the TV.
At that time in India, owning a black-and-white television was a mark of wealth. Colour TV was still a distant dream, mostly seen in international news or smuggled from abroad by diplomats. In 1980, one imported colour television could cost ₹20,000 to ₹25,000—a king's ransom for the average family. Very few even knew what a full-colour screen looked like.
Ajay knew the numbers. He had been collecting old TV sets and studying their components—many of them had parts repurposed from radios and phonographs. He held one such vacuum tube in his hand now, squinting at it.
Bharat broke the silence. "Pitaji, what's that?"
Ajay smiled. "This? This is how pictures travel. It helps the TV decide what to show you."
"Can it show me in colour?"
Ajay laughed, "Not yet. But maybe soon."
The Dream of Colour
Ajay gathered his core team at the newly rented basement office near Aminabad. The space smelled of solder and ambition. Professor Joshi, his mentor from IIT Kanpur, visited often—now a full-time technical advisor to the company, which was named Nirmaan Technologies.
They divided into teams:
The Display Unit: Focused on screen resolution and colour rendering.
The Signal Decoding Team: Engineers working on converting Doordarshan's analog signal into compatible RGB outputs.
The Casing & Design Team: Local artisans and mechanical drafters who would build the box and framework.
Ajay's friend from college, Manish Talwar, an expert in optics and display, led the Display Unit. Another old friend, Ravi Chandra, who had worked in a government telecom division, joined to handle signal compatibility. Young interns from nearby engineering colleges—many just 21 or 22—filed in every morning with oil-stained notebooks and starry eyes.
Raghav, Ajay's younger brother, managed accounts and vendor logistics. "If this thing explodes in someone's home," he joked one evening, "I'm moving to Nepal."
Affordable Innovation
The goal was simple, but daunting: Build a fully Indian colour television, cheap enough that the middle class could afford it. Not ₹20,000. Not ₹15,000.
Ajay's dream? ₹4,999.
They sourced components from domestic suppliers. Instead of imported Japanese tuning coils, they built their own using copper wires from old fan motors. Bharat once found Ajay sitting cross-legged in the hallway, unwinding one.
"The best wires are in the oldest fans," Ajay said. "No interference, no drama."
They scouted a small manufacturing space outside Lucknow—an abandoned textile storehouse was converted into a semi-factory. Workers came in from the nearby village. Pooja, Ajay's sister, helped organize health camps for the new staff. Dadi would sometimes bring food for everyone in steel tiffins, and Dadaji even helped translate the user manual into simple Hindi.
The First Picture
It happened late one August evening.
After months of work, wires taped with red fabric strips, soldered joints glistening in the light of a hurricane lamp, and a lot of chana-murmura dinners, they flipped the switch.
Static.
Then blur.
Then… a peacock.
Wings wide, feathers full.
The screen flickered, but the image held.
Bharat, watching from behind the door, whispered, "It's dancing."
Ajay closed his eyes, whispering a silent prayer. "Jai Hind."
Public Launch
The colour TV was displayed at the Bharat Bhavan auditorium in December 1980. People stood in long queues, wiping sweat with handkerchiefs, just to catch a glimpse of the miracle.
A black screen. Then colour.
Doordarshan's test pattern faded into an image of India Gate wrapped in saffron light. Children screamed in delight. Old men gasped. Women clapped. Bharat stood holding his cousin's hand, pointing at the screen, saying proudly, "My Pitaji made that."
Ajay, standing at the back with his team, didn't say a word. His eyes were wet.
Exporting Ideas, Not Just Devices
The orders started coming in.
Nirmaan Technologies landed a small government contract—20 prototype colour TVs for Doordarshan research labs. Then came interest from a new private school chain in South India. The company made its first major revenue: ₹2.5 lakhs by March 1981.
But Ajay wasn't just chasing money.
At a board meeting, he said:
"We're not in the business of screens. We're in the business of visibility. If a child in Kanpur sees what a child in Tokyo sees, he dreams the same dream."
They began work on audio-video synchronisation, signal boosters, and experimented with smaller camera modules—to maybe one day send images both ways.