In fact the jungle is
just outside my room here in Jorhat, Assam
Everyone
says don’t live in the past, live in the present , well I
also say that and believe in . But sometimes old fashioned me just can’t get the hang of it or
should I say loose the hang of me. So these days I am reliving the past by
listening to my old cassettes
collection.
I used to listen to
all of them one by one once in a year or two and in the process would
discard the ones which had gone bad .I had loads of them , the number crossed four hundred ,from Rock to Ghazals to the various mixes
by the then ,early nineties ,very famous Music Centre
of Dehradun called Venus Music Centre. I would have spent a lot
of money on them. In fact a substantial part of my salary and time would go towards discovering music. There was a joy in process , it always is .
I had a decent music system ,my life lie , which would always be on when I was home alone . To supplement I had two Walkman, pride possession of young officer in all field postings . One of them was Sony and other was Aiwa, which had auto reverse feature. There has been numerous nights when I would sleep with the Aiwa Walkman on at night after a binge and wake up next day with music still on. The sequence of songs in my favorite cassettes was embedded in my mind to the extent I knew which song would come up next. In fact this sequence stayed for a long time in my mind and still it sometimes comes as a flash.
Those were the days
when one aftershave and a handkerchief
was meant only for cleaning the head of
the cassette player . Many of you would scoff at me for indulging in this activity
at this age and stage in life when the cassettes have already, officially, been declared dead.
I think that was two years back in 2009.In fact when I went with Amit, a good friend in Pune , a year and a
half back, to pick a new music system; I wanted it to have one with a cassette player and he gave me
strange looks.
I started this
exercise of listening to all of them quite a few days back, this time around it
was after many years, and lo and behold it opened the flood gates of memories
.It also brought back all those memories of parties that we organised as youngsters in Doon ,
those unsuccessful ruses to get the babes ,dancing on ' Dirty Dancing,` ; nothing beats that I guess .
I can not forget the cassette that I bought when
Rocky was born ,’ Pyromania `by Def Leppard,(cassettes I recorded keeping Rocky's
music interest in mind .He loved Rabbi’s “Bulla ki Jana Main Kaun”, ”Azadi “ from Bose and ” Jine Mera Dil Luteya” by
Jazzy B.
Every single cassette
that I play these days has meant something
to me. I like to believe I have a
reasonably good memory and most of my cassettes also have a note about the time and place when they were
bought.
Yesterday
it was Nirvana's' Nevermind` which was bought when I met Rocky for the
second time after his birth , he was only two months old and in Delhi.
Some of these songs
which have run in my head for such a long time now sometimes come out as my
status on Facebook which only few understand and sometimes ,as design
deficiency, they ring in my mind just out of nowhere. They take me to those
beautiful moments which I spent with
myself in some beautiful early mornings , some very late evenings and
once in a while to times when I had someone by my side with a drink who would
understand, or at least try to act so, what this music meant to me.
I want more , in
fact all I want is everything (Deff Leppard
)
6 comments:
Nicely written. Took me back to the time (in fact same time as yours๐) when I used to do the same activity of collecting cassettes. A lot of money spent buying and time spent listening! Same same but the only difference is that I still have a lot of cassettes intact and a player to play them!
In fact, I too had penned an article on my cassettes. Let me look for it. Will share with you.
Your piece is a great article for youngsters who probably haven’t even seen a cassette player!
Thanks Sameer ,I too had invested a lot of time and money and now sometimes I miss my collection
What you’ve written is a deeply nostalgic and emotionally rich reflection that beautifully captures the romance of music, memory, and a bygone era. More power to your thoughts bro
Thanks a lot ,Paiya .Such strong words!
I have always admired your choice of music… generally.From cassette tapes to Walkmans to rocking out on Bose sound systems—your music journey is basically the ultimate time travel playlist. Next stop: holographic ghazal concerts in the metaverse? Keep the tunes coming, maestro!
Thanks a lot .har baat par tum kahte ho ki tu kya hai .....
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