Radio and Me

On Sunday(10-03-2013) as usual i went to wet market and bought fishes and met some grandpas and grandmas who were all very kind to me in explaining everything about fishes and Chinese vegetables.While returning back home i saw an old radio throughout by our neighbor.That radio took me to my childhood and college days.

Childhood:
My memory says it was my uncle who introduced radio to me, he used a  small radio to listen cricket commentary.He was a big fan of West Indies and Srilanka cricket team.Now and then he tuned Roopavahini  -a Srilankan radio station and listen Tamil songs.We too had one big black and silver color radio with big tuners and buttons. I was never interested any device or machine, it was my elder brother who did all sort of things to listen to Tamil and Hindi songs. Like in late 80's and early 90's my brother liked to hear songs with full volume. We all hooked to the Maestro's compositions.I did not remember hearing any news or interviews in radio those days.Then came the magical cassette player which changed the way we heard songs. We can stop,reverse,forward and record too, wow, all our evening time spent with that magical device. My brother was fond of car-set , a big square shape cassette player and he saved enough money and bought an assembled set(we bought all spare parts and electrician assembled it).

I still remember the first day of that assembled player in our room.Ours is a small room with one cot with bed and one wooden table and with a shelve. We kept the cassette player on the first rack of the shelve and kept the two big speakers on each corner of the top slab.Our first song was a Hindi song from "Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayinge". No words to express our joy on that moment. My brother raised volume to full and it was rattling! and my mother started shouting us to reduce the volume but we were flying.Wonderful moments! We had a great time with that loud speakers, until my brother's death. The speakers were silenced forever in my house.

College:
I never had a luxury of listening what i liked in my late teen years. I always heard what others in the place heard but everything changed the arrival of two things.First my uncle who gave walkman to my family which i took and went to college and the second was the arrival of Suriyan FM. I did not hear much in that walkman as we lost that soon. But Suryan FM changed the routine of hostel days.The way Suryan FM promoted was amazing,everyone started asking and shown interested in that. 93.5 became mantra for us.I remember some RJs, Daison Joseph with his trademark voice and Yazh Sudhagar with his poems for each songs,were stood out. And there was one female DJ , i forgot the name ,she was also good.

During Saturday and Sunday  our radio was playing non-stop.When we moved out of hostel and  stayed out in a house we had a small radio which was our only entertainment.Where ever we went Suryan FM followed us in those days. We had lot arguments about the song, musicians and singers through the radio listening but we all united whenever a good melody played .The radio continued to travel with us when we spent our initial jobless days at Bangalore .After we all got job,we stopped travelling with radio.Now its been many years since i heard songs in radio.Now we have internet radio stations and YouTube but there is something unique to listen to those days radio programs .Now i dont know how many radio stations are there in Tamilnadu .Are Coimbatore people still listening to Suryan FM like in 2000's?

That thrown out radio made me to revisit my childhood, my brother,my hostel ,our rented house which had initial RVS (btw thats our college name as well as first letter our names!). I will cherish those memories forever-thanks to the radio.