Friday, February 3, 2012

In Rewind Mode


The day the music died….(To those from my time, it would be a song by Don McLean and for the younger generation maybe the lines would still be a familiar Madonna song)  

But that is how we felt for a long time after WorldSpace closed their operations in India.  It used to be a routine.  Early morning devotional music – Carnatic and Hindustani that slowly progressed to a faster beat for the exercise hour and then to Farishta for old Hindi songs. The day went by. 

And then there was no music at all.  We put away the satellite receiver.  Our 15 year old Sony music system was in a bad shape.  From disuse. For a while we managed with the music channels on TV and we were only listening to the latest Bollywood music.  An occasional good song, but constant Sheila and Munni can get so tiring.  V thought we had enough of it all and lugged the music system to the service center.  

It came back a fortnight ago with the FM radio, CD and audio-casette player in working condition. We found ourselves removing the carton that had not seen the light of day for almost three years. A box filled with memories.  Of age old audio-cassettes!! The thought of donating the tapes had occurred to me , but I had found no takers.  All had moved on to newer technology. The younger one asked me to check on Amazon.  You might just get lucky, she said.  Some ancient articles can bring in good money. But no such luck.  Everyone seemed to think they just had to be junked.  And so the carton remained.  Thank god for that!

After spending a whole day sorting them out, we have boxes (and more boxes) of songs - in all languages - English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu.  Classical music - western and Indian. Vocal and instrumental. And the tapes in good condition too.  With music to last a life time.

What was even better was the discovery of the tapes of my children reciting nursery rhymes, slokas and a whole lot of baby talk that their grandfather had recorded.  

And yet another surprise.  We had met MS Subbalakshmi when she was no longer giving public performances. No mobile phone cameras, no digital cameras to capture the moment.  But for this ...

And now I get up to the sound of music...and a cup of tea (yes, I am not the first one to awaken) . What could be better than that?
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