School Days Memories: Part 2: The Radio and Music

 




20 03 24

We are from the blessed people, who have seen music progressing from a simple radio, to record players, to audio cassettes, to the current forms.

My first favourite, in the early seventies, used to be (like for many others), Binaca Geet Mala (Later Cibaca), with Amin Sayani. Wednesday would be a day eagerly awaited, time 8 PM, when we would hear the all too familiar voice saying ‘Namaskar, Behnon aur Bhaiyon’, on Radio Ceylon. We had a Philips radio, which had Short Wave bands(Not sure @ FM in those years), and, Binaca used to come on one of those bands. Luckily I found a pic of the exact same model via google, and it was this one, indeed.. it says it’s model LX4. (Now, an antique piece worth quite a bit, I am sure ).

Sometimes the reception would not be too good, and the ears had to be kept right on the ‘screen’, in order to hear something. And, woe betide if the electricity went off during that hour.. everyone in the house would know how irritated I was. Ahahaha. At the end of the year, the last two episodes would be the Top 25, and, probably the most awaited of the year.. I used to often note down each and every ‘winning song’ (though for what purpose, I can’t remember, as we had not progressed to audio cassette recorders still)… and, next day, some similarly interested school friends and me would discuss which songs and won and which ones deserved to have been nearer the top spot.

There were also some foreign radio stations which would come in, on the same radio, right from BBC, to VOA(Voice Of America), to Radio Deutchewelle and so on – post on this comes up shortly, since this had become a prime hobby for some years, during the eighties, and, what a hobby it was… amazing.. wait till the next post. 😊


We also had an EP record player, which Dad had brought in from Russia, and there was an album of EP records, mostly Hindi. In those days, the sound from it could really be termed ‘melodious’. But I don’t have too many memories of this one… the main companion was the Philips radio.

Next part coming up soon.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Perception

Image
  Hi all positive people.. a topic I often think over.. it's something which helped a lot in changing my thoughts towards the positive side (Again, learned via the Secret)... and, still does, in this always continual learning curve. The subject: Perception... my own perception: Think over it, specially, your negative thoughts and emotions about people and things - you find someone to be angry, you find them to be always complaining, you hate(That's the worst negative word, according to me.. better to dislike than hate, if you have to) someone or something. Think over it... are those persons or things like that? Or, it it your perception of how they are? Have you tried to put yourself in their place to see if they are, deep inside worried about something else, and that worry comes out as irritation towards you? One of the best remedies: Smile, bless that person or those persons and wish them all the best.. if they don't change, nee, not them, but YOUR perception of them does
Read more

News roundabout

Image
‘Vaandro udhto udhto gayo’( A flying monkey just went by)….a remark that gave me the first laugh of the day today. A sudden sound of a parrot-like screech coupled with something like hooves clickety-clacking on the vehicle-less road caused the tea guy at the tea stall ask ‘what was that’? and, a guy sitting nearby retorted thusly. I just tried imagining a flying monkey, and couldn’t help grinning away in the dark.(I still don't know what had caused the sound, btw) Life’s like that- if you keep your ears open, you can never have a dull moment. We had our Building’s AGM two days, back, at 730 PM, on the terrace. It was accompanied by a simple, catered dinner, since it’s also an annual get-together. The catering guy had set one table with the actual dinner, and the other one at a right angle, was slightly in the dark, so you could just about see something in the thalis(huge plates). So we took a plate,etc, and, first took the salad, then, the achaar or something like it, and then th
Read more

Inventions and Discoveries

I'm really curious. Who invented the 'Va'. Or the 'Sha'. Or the 'Wi'. Or some such words. No, they're not some illnesses or prefixes. These are the words we invent when talking to people. I see the usage the max, specially in Baroda. Like: 1. Chai-Vaai peeni hai?(Want to have some Chai-Vaai?) 2. Naashta-Vaashta kar liya?(Did you have Naashta-Vaashta?) 3. Chutney-Vutney hai kya?( Is there any chutney-vutney?) 4. Lift-Wift nahin hai kya building mein?(Isn't there a Life-Wift in the building?) 5. Bombay-Wombay/ Dubai-Shubai kab jaa rahe ho ab?(When are you going to ....?) 6. Paise-Vaise milenge time pe ya nahin?(Will you get Paise-Vaise on time or not?) There are so many others I come across during the day, like, say speaker-veeker, phone-vone, kapde-vapde, dukaan-vukaan, that I have these rhyming words coming out of my ears, and, Arghhh!! Since the last few days, even I've started talking like this. Hopefully it won't be too rampant on my blo
Read more