Radio Jockeys – sound versus visuals

What is it about radio jockeys?  How and why do they influence your mind and sensibilities?  In today’s world it is nothing compared to the latest devices of contact like – video shows, you tube, and God knows so much more.  Visuals play a big, major role of getting in touch with you in the present scenario.  Then why is it the radio jockeys wield some sort of magic and magic it is.  It is the voice followed by the music or whatever is on the show; and yet it can glue you to your set!

I try not to miss a particular radio programme called “Country Carnival” on the FM radio provided by the Dish TV service providers. The anchor person is known as:”Vintage Andy” and he dishes out some of the best country music you can listen to for one hour.  You know what I like best – it is his voice.  It is the best after Elvis Priestley – to me!  The programme is aired every Monday evening between six and seven p.m.  This vintage Andy replies in a very homely and romantic language in the most ordinary manner to every mail or sms he receives.

I do not know about radio jockeys because I do not listen to each and every one of them; but I do know that being a radio jockey is no child’s play.  The job definitely competes with extraordinary visuals that catch your eye and attention at the drop of a hat.   He or she is appealing to the audiences only through the voice and the tone and the language with the unseen ‘oomph’ factor.  Whereas, the visual entertainment programmes have the latest technological devices that enhance every second of the show, even making the anchor or the performer more beautiful than actual.  No offence meant, but the visual performers do rely heavily on the add-ons. 

As an old timer I am used to honing my listening skills.  In childhood it was imperative that I listened to the All India Radio news, listen to rabindra sangeet being aired, take perfect dictations, and listen to my own reading so as to be able to correct my diction – whether English, Bengali or Hindi.  Light travels faster than sound – I learned that in science.  However, sound registers in the mind quicker than visuals – I am no scientist but if you watch a child you may understand. The baby catches on to sound quicker than seeing something.  And when the sound is groovy, attractive with the right noise and understandable language it can mesmerize you – like some of the radio shows all over the world.  

Welcoming the new baby!

The stork pays a visit and a new baby comes into the house – but why does Mama have to go to the hospital to bring the baby?  Honestly I could not figure out the connection when my baby sister was born – did the stork come and give the new baby only to mothers in the hospital?  Yes even at the age of seven I was a complete dud and believed in fairy tales – in fact I do so even now. 

Coming back to the year when my little sister was born on 12^th July.  I remember Baba, dada and I running around buying baby stuff before going to the hospital for the evening visit.   There was lot of excitement and trepidation inside me and I know it must have been the same with my dada, who was a year older to me.  Imagine a new baby in the family!  Will she become the apple of my parents’ eyes?  Will dada and I be sidelined?  Will we be able to play with the new arrival?  Most importantly, will I still be able to sleep next to my mother?  I was a 7-year old with a lot of anxiety and a million questions impatiently bubbling for answers.  And the answers must be comforting and reassuring – at least those were my internal demands.

All questions vanished when dada and I looked down with wonder at the beautiful baby in the hospital crib next to my mother’s bed.  My sister was superbly beautiful with dark ringlets of hair, fair and big black eyes (which we could see when she blinked a couple of times as all newborns do).   What quizzed us were her skin flakes that could be seen on her hands and we (dada & I) were itching to pull them.  We accomplished this task when Baba and Ma were busy talking to each other, but unfortunately, the nurse had to pop in right then and admonished us duly.  We were just curious, but it must have hurt my newly born sister.   

Birthday memories - 5th September

I turned 61 this year – slowly creeping towards the awesome ‘70s’.  Wishing by friends and close ones are nowadays done through the mobile and of course face book!  No more eagerly waiting for birthday cards (didn’t matter what age you were!) or crowd of loved ones trooping in towards evening to usher you into the new year. 

One memory distinctly stands out from my past birthdays.  It is 5^th September, 1960.  I am 8 years old today and have many things to do like wear a pretty dress to school, distribute sweets to all, go and pay my respects to my dadu and then get ready for the party in the evening.  Here I am early in the morning standing in front of the two-storied henhouse in our courtyard while I hold the birthday card I received from Baba.  He sent it on time for my big day all the way from somewhere in Europe.  Baba is on a tour of the European countries on work; he is with the British High Commission in Calcutta.  The card has a little girl amidst a joyful farm filled with hens, ducks, pink pigs, cows and the morning sun glowing down on them. 

September 5^th, 1996 Aurangabad, Maharashtra was a heart-wrenching birthday that will be etched inside me forever.  They were pretty hard days - we survived on 2-3 spoonful of sugar a day for quite some time.  Somehow my daughters managed to purchase a tiny plain cake from the mobile cake man who did his rounds every evening under our apartment.  Come midnight 4^th September my children gave me the best birthday of my life!  A tiny leftover candle from previous years burned triumphantly that night as evidence of pure love – our love for each other.  And I was deluged with handmade birthday cards – so lovingly crafted with crayons and sketch pens on the pages of an unused old diary. 

5^th September is celebrated as Teacher’s Day in India, in respect of Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan’s birthday (our ex-President).  Dr. Radhakrishnan was primarily an educationist and so his birthday is honoured by Indians.  When I was growing and celebrated my birthday by distributing sweets to classmates and teachers on the 5^th September, I childishly felt I was somehow connected to the great man.  I even found out his address in Madras and wrote him a letter mentioning how we shared our birthdays.  Many days later when I received a typed card with his signature my joy knew no bound!  Such an esteemed and honoured man took the trouble of replying to some silly child in Calcutta.  How superbly humble!   

As you sow so shall you reap

Dilemma – age versus illness

I went to see a female cousin yesterday, who is close to 70 or thereabouts.  She has problems with her kidneys and is undergoing dialysis on a regular basis.  I have not been close to her for the past several years due to various reasons, mainly because of a continuous agenda against me, for what I still need to decipher.  But she is my didi, someone I have known since I was able to speak and interact. 

I remember her love and romance with her husband, who seemed so helpless when I met him yesterday.  I am witness to their love and secret meetings and am not ashamed to admit I loved them together – do so even now. 

My question is why do we suffer when we become old or advance in years?  My studies have taught me that we pay back for all our mistakes here on this earth before we depart.  Honestly, it is the bloody truth. 

I am confirmed about my belief after I have seen my mother go through nearly six years of total dependence even if she needed to spit!  I did my level best to find one single fault about my mom – I did not.  However, I remembered that she never asked anyone to give her even a glass of water despite the retinue of servants in the house.  Never, ever.  That was her pride and she paid for it before she passed off peacefully.  Yes peacefully because I was there with her in her last moments.  She listened to my Gita readings, sighed and opened her mouth for her ‘praan’ to be released.  I poured some water into her mouth which went down her throat and then she expired.  Beautiful!

My dad passed away in his father-in-law’s house.  My father was a proud man (can’t blame him totally because he had a Brahmin landowner’s genes) and was sometimes quite arrogant but always honest and humble to the most unlikely people!  I love you, Baba.  You taught me to ‘deserve before you desire’. 

I wonder what I shall pay for before I leave this identity.  I am going back to see all or any sins I may have committed so that I can ask for forgiveness and am spared the retributions.  God please lend your ears.  Hark your faithful is calling.  Sincerely.  

Impressions of a lifetime

                                                           My favourite man

He was my dadu, my mother’s father.  He was the only grandfather I knew as my father’s father had passed away when my dad was quite young.  Today is dadu’s birthday – 9^th September and he would probably have turned 130 odd years if still around. God bless his soul.

I remember my grandfather always dressed in white khadi shorts (reaching below his knee) and white khadi bush shirt.  His only companion during walks or marketing was his strong walking stick – I guess it is still somewhere around the house.  And of course, who can forget the white ked shoes; shoes that even our generation wore to school for P.T. classes.  Dadu loved to dye his absolutely white hair and as a child I soon learned that it was time for dyeing when his hair colour changed into a combination of red-orange-beetroot.  I particularly loved those days because dadu would be in self-indulging happy phase, singing or humming hymns standing in front of the mirror in the huge bathroom.  No he was not a Christian; he was a Hindu and personally conducted the grand Lakshmi pujo every year in the pujo room on the roof.  I still love Lakshmi pujo for the typically Bengali coconut laddoos or ‘narkeler naroo.’

We did not live far from my ‘dadur bari’ (house), just a ten-minute walk from Sarat Banerjee Road to Lake Avenue.  Dadu would stop outside our door on his way back from his morning walk to collect his share of the sandwich toast (sandwich toaster was a new addition in our house and made breakfast more exciting in those days).  He would announce his presence with two sharp taps of his hardy walking stick, take the packed sandwich and be off to sit at his breakfast table by 8 a.m.  I have often been invited to his breakfast and knew his menu by heart – a glass of eggnog, an egg poach with lightly buttered toasts or the sandwich toast, jam and a cup of Darjeeling tea poured from the teapot.  Sometimes the menu changed to Indian ‘luchi’ and ‘tarkari’ – most often on special occasions like a grandchild’s birthday, festival or ‘jamai-shoshti’ etc. 

Dadu often invited my dada and me to special Sunday lunches at sharp 12.30 p.m.  We soon knew these lunches would have exotic fowl meat on the table, cooked to perfection under his scrutiny.  On such days he would go to New Market very early in the morning, buy his favourite partridge or bard, and come back home, send a handwritten note inviting us and then get down to the business of supervising the lunch preparations. 

I often had my birthday lunch with dadu on the 5^th of September and I remember eagerly watching out for the handwritten invitation every year.  On one such birthday dadu sent me a note with a message – “Be learned like your mother and educated like your father.”  I shall never forget that sentence. 

Dadu’s dinner time was 8 p.m. after which he would sit down to write his diary and I wrote many pages in his diary as per his dictations.  Yes, I enjoyed taking his dictation even though there were sentences and words I did not understand at that young age.  My parents would drop me off at dadu’s place before their evening walks and then fetch me before nine.  Dadu had a tin box divided into different sized sections and each night he would keep his accounts and then put every coin into the right section – I enjoyed doing that too!

Who was dadu?   He was Preo Nath Hore.  He had lost his own mother when a small child but grew to love and respect his step-mother.  She lived in their village home with her biological sons, but always looked forward to the yearly visits my parents and I made loaded with love and gifts from her beloved stepson – my dadu.  My grandfather studied in St.Xavier’s Calcutta and graduated from the same college to become a popular Inspector of schools in the Darjeeling district under the British rule.