ON AIR

[Text by D.B., photos as mentioned]

Well, we all celebrated the World’s Music Day, a week ago. Frankly speaking I wasn’t aware of this day despite of my knack of remembering important dates, but, the TV commercials, advertisements in print media, etc. brought ‘it’ to my notice. Being a ‘music freak’, I actually never felt the need of dedicating a ‘single’ day to music, the same way as I feel for Valentine’s, Mother’s or Father’s day. But then, I guess, it is the best way to show your love towards respective things. The name, ‘Music Freak’, was given to me by a salesman when he asked me, “What type of music you listen to, Sir?” to which I replied, “Everything, from Kishore Da to LP, from Classical to Hip-Hop.. I listen to Music, not the genres!” and he said, smiling, “So, you are the ‘music-freak’ types!” Clueless, I nodded and agreed with the person. And what made me a ‘music-freak’ is the content of this post.

source : Google Images

It started off (listening to music) back in my childhood days with my dad’s antique, old-fashioned, nearly-dying; Ramsons FM radio set, the one with an adjustable antenna. The ‘pre-historic’ FM set with black-leather cover with pores on one side, the one covering the speaker, having enough space to adjust the ‘rotatable’ antenna, could play AM or FM and SW, MW were the other channels (supposedly) which always played the ‘How disturbance sounds..’ track! Frequency adjustment, which is a very complicated stuff requiring skilled-labor, was not that tough those days reason being the limited frequencies available. On could either listen to Vivid Bharti or AIR. I grew up listening to those oldies, retro hits.

The new Radio-speaker set made entry in late ‘90s and changed the way. I can recall it was an assembled set, with two huge speakers, which we bought in just thousand bucks and it served as the ‘main source’ of entertainment for the family, though me and my mom are the two interested in music! The set had an in-built audio-cassette player too, which gave me an opportunity to go for ‘newer’ songs. In short period I had a good collection of cassettes with me. Most of them belonged to Bollywood and others were custom-made. I remember Dil Chahta Hai and Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein were two of my ‘priced-possessions’. Just Rs. 40- Rs. 60, which used to be the price! My Daadi used to scold me, “Asi nahaandeya bhagwan da naa lende aa, ae moya gaaney gaanda hai!” (“We always pray to god while bathing and he is busy singing songs”, this much translation is enough for those who don’t understand Punjabi language, I guess)

With the milestone year, ‘Y2K’, the whole scene took a transformation. It brought the new era for the FM with the introduction of newer frequencies. 91.0, 93.5 and 98.3 became the very first numerals which had their own name, Radio City, Red FM and Radio Mirchi, respectively. It was a revolution! The old ‘slow-paced-news-telling’ face of the Radio had been given a new identity, new voices and new songs. There was so much to listen to. The earlier shows of AIR had RJ’s with subtle voice, slow speech delivery and a very good bond with the ‘selected’ audience. When I say ‘selected’, it is merely because it was heard all over the nation at one time. People who used to call in or write letters were those same Bittu, Pinky and Munni from Zila Jabalpur or so and so village. Even the RJs knew them and used to respond to them with warmth and compassion. This was the ‘feel’ of that era. The new stations, on the other hand, were city oriented, and thus were focused on the things happening in your city. The RJ’s are talking about your area or a market near your place, they are telling you where you could find traffic, this too created the sense or the ‘feel’, but in a very short time. The voices eventually became the face of the Channel and thus the choice of the listener. You had more options so you could flip the channel whenever you want to. If one channel had advertisements On Air, you could search for the songs on the other. The new competition struck the old channels badly and they too jumped into competition with new names, AIR FM Rainbow and AIR FM GOLD, quite easy to make out that Rainbow aired newer songs and Gold aired Classics. From just two in the box, now there were five frequencies. The number kept on rising with the introduction of channels like HIT FM, which came into lime-light with its ‘no advertisement, Only Hit Music’ campaign. It played hit songs like mad, whole day, without a break. Later it also went into the ‘commercial’ zone, that’s a different story. BIG FM, Fever 104, Radio One were added much later to the list with frequencies like 104.8 which kept on changing, earlier Meow FM to the latest Oye Hoye!

The first three have made their mark in my musical journey so far. Very near to the birth of these stations, my parents brought me a ‘pencil-pocket radio’. It was a Chinese invention (had to be) and was cheap. They bought it from Mumbai and it was amazing and came out to be a ‘blessing’ for me! It could catch 20 frequencies and flipping from one to other was just a click away. It didn’t have a speaker and earphones could be attached to it. It was an extremely easy-to-carry entertainment. That was the first time when I started ‘carrying’ my music. I did even carry that to my school, which apparently, was a very big issue at that time. It had battery slots for the small pencil batteries, which used to be Rs. 10 at that time and the radio itself had a price tag of Rs. 80 only! It came to Delhi markets after a long period. The best time to use it was when there was a power cut. That is actually one of the best memories of my childhood – Having a power-cut! As soon as there is a power cut, the whole family gets together in the balcony, sitting on chaar-pai, having hand-made pankha or newspapers in hand, staring towards the sky (as a kid I always used to lie down on chaar-pai), waiting for the power to come as you could do nothing about it! That gave everyone an ‘unintentional vacation’ from their tasks-to-do. Ah.. Fond memory! This phase made me addicted to FM and thus Music.

Its not the one, But its exactly what I had.
source : Google Images

I was acquainted to the Radio Jockeys and started ‘following’ them. The very first ones were Ulta pulta Nitin, RJ Sayema, RJ Mantra, and few others. My relationship with them grew day by day, months by months, years by years. Till now, I have been listening to them; Nitin has shifted from one channel to other a couple of times, Sayema is still there with her magical voice for Purani Jeans. Even today, switching on the radio and listening to Purani Jeans every day, is a part of my habit. I know what her Abbu told her about the festival of Eid, I know how she felt when she came to know that she’s connected to some other country; she’s more than a friend to me! These ‘friends’ of mine became part of my life. In 10^th standard I dedicated a song to my class-friend on birthday, for the first time (and no one knows about this, which makes this a ‘confession’). It was a damn tough thing for a kid to ‘dedicate’ something on radio as you had to e-mail them the request. Fortunately, mine got selected and unfortunately, she didn’t hear it. I did and it was an awesome feeling to hear your dedication on air when you know that so many people would be listening to it! Phew! I remember, I heard the semi-finals of 1^st Indian Idol on FM, before my exams, during power cut. Abhijeet Sawant sang Tu mile, Dil khiley..  Well, I do have plenty of such memories linked with this juke-box. The funniest or may be the most tragic is that I even tried for the Job of Radio Jockey. I gave auditions for it in my BOARD exams, just before the Mathematics’ one. It was a Talent Hunt for Junior Jockeys.

Even my shift from the city to my ‘remote’ college campus could not change my love with the box. I said ‘remote’, because it is the place where, if you are lucky, you can listen to BIG FM or VIVIDH BHARTI or, on a clear day, even Pakistani frequencies! I managed a jugaad and connected tiny speakers to my mobile with one wire hanging from the window of my room so as to catch signals and I got addicted with RJ Rahul Makin and his show Yaadein, which plays Gazals. Recently, he also shifted to Delhi and is now working here.

Time changed, devices changed, frequencies changed but my love for this device is still the same. More than the device, I guess the people, their warm presence, their ‘connection’ with you that tells you that you are never alone, makes FM close to the heart. And above all, it’s the Music that you listen.

From the days of my childhood, listening to Radio on chaar-pai on a ‘power-cut-night’.. to getting a text from a friend while travelling in Metro, “tune in to 95FM, awesome song”, it’s been a long and melodious journey. No matter whatever collection of songs you have, it has a different ‘feel’ when its ON AIR!