Musically Speaking

Musically Speaking

By Kris Tee

The very first radio I remember was that box like structure, the valve operated receiver that operated in the Medium Wave and Short Wave. It used to be a favourite of film makers and could usually be seen in those depressing movies, the family dramas of the 60s and 70s, giving out some news with a family crowded around it, concern writ large on their faces.

I don’t recall seeing the gramophone at home, however it must have been there, as we still had some 78 RPM disks, or records, as they were called then, and those could only have been played on the gramophone.

The radio set needed to warm up before it could be used and would require careful tuning by a person with a gentle touch and a sensitive ear. If tuned above or below the desired frequency, the radio would voice its protest by emitting an angry hiss or a loud squawk. Once the radio had settled, it would entertain the family with music from All India Radio till it was time for the news.

The lady of the house took personal care to dust it daily, covering it reverentially with a clean runner when not in use. Armchairs on either side for senior members of the family were placed where they sat sipping tea while listening to the news or read the paper while the radio played music.

The radio would be switched on at specific times for Vividh Bharati, Hindi Samachar etc and then switched off once those programs ended. Children were expected to sit on the rug in front of the radio and listen to the English news, as that was guaranteed to improve their general knowledge.

By the mid 60s, transistor radios began making their appearance in Indian homes. We had one such model at home, a Japanese made ‘National’ radio. It was a handy compact piece that came with its leather case, designed to protect the plastic body from the rigours of an Indian household that included everything from hooligan kids playing football indoors, to clumsy servants, and everything else along the way.

The action then shifted from the drawing room to the dining table where my father would invariably adjust his watch to All India Radio’s ‘time check’ at 9PM which was a series of short beeps ending with a long beep. Then would follow the English news read by legendary broadcasters like Melville De Mello, Lotika Ratnam and others. Their diction was widely regarded as the gold standard in that tongue, to be emulated by school going children.

Somewhere along the way, in 1967, we acquired a radiogram, probably under pressure from my more vocal, older siblings, the in their teens, for whom Beatles, Elvis, Cliff Richard, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck and other pop stars of that period, were staple diet.

The radiogram was a sleek piece of furniture. When you pushed the upper lid back, the front face also smoothly opened, to reveal a Phillips Radio and a Garrard changer that played records at 16, 33, 45 and 78 RPM. It had two speakers built into the lower part of the cabinet and a drawer below to store records.

Each 45 rpm disk had one song on each side. One could load up a stack of 45s and the changer would play them one by one. It was fascinating to watch the synchronized movements of the mechanical arm as it moved to the edge of a disk, started playing and when the song was over, it would lift automatically, move back to its original position while the next disk dropped from the stack.

We didn’t have too many records, so I mostly heard the same ones over and over again. The soundtrack of the movie My Fair Lady along with lyrics was one such. I heard it so many times that I knew all the songs by heart. Even the typically East End words and the cockney accents, had so firmly lodged themselves in my memory that when I recently attended a musical rendition of My Fair Lady at NCPA, all those words and tunes from 50 yars ago, came back so easily. I could instantly spot the flaws in the delivery of the actors.

By 1970 or 71 the radiogram was on its way out. Its place was taken by a stereo system.

An associate of my father, who was an electronics buff, offered to make a stereo amplifier at a price much lower than the market. He did a good job and one day the stereo system came home. The amplifier was housed in a teakwood cabinet with a separate Phillips turntable and two large teakwood speaker cabinets. The sound quality was far better than the old radiogram. More records were purchased. By now, I was old enough to handle the new equipment and I quickly took charge. 

Meanwhile our old transistor radio continued to do duty for my father’s daily news.

I listened to the Bournvita Quiz Contest on sundays (to test the aforementioned GK) followed by a “crime thriller” radio program, Inspector Eagle. I listened to hockey commentaries where the level of excitement in the commentator’s voice went up or down depending on whether the ball was close to, or, far from the goal line. In those days since cricket matches were rather dull five day affairs, my mother decreed that the radio not be used for that purpose. That transistor radio continued to provide my father with his news fix well into the late 70s till it was honourably retired, its role having been taken over by the TV.

Cassette players entered the scene around 1972. There may have been those lucky ones

who brought back a cassette player from abroad but for the vast majority of Indians, foreign electronic goods were like water in the desert. If you couldn’t convince a rich relative to bring a piece from abroad, the few options available were – to befriend a foreigner going back home and buy it off him (hence the popularity of the flea markets in Goa), to find a ‘reliable’ smuggler in Bombay, or, to look out for the auction of customs seized goods.

The very first cassette player I saw was a mono affair. Music quality was pedestrian. Cassette tape quality was also poor and tapes tended to get tangled up inside the player. However it was fascinating that a single cassette could hold many more songs than several LP records and one could rewrite previously recorded discs.

The sizes of radios had also begun to shrink and we bought a miniature two band radio the “transi” in addition to our old faithful National, which had begun to show signs of ageing.

Then came the age of the TV and radios and record players began to lose some of their appeal. Chhaya Geet or Chitrahar became immensely popular and now one could ‘watch’ rather than ’hear’ the news. EC TV became the most sought after TV. It boasted around 5 pre-tuned channels. Tuning the TV was a family affair with the young son dispatched to the terrace to turn the rooftop antenna left or right according to the instructions given by Mom or Dad on the controls, and relayed to the roof by another person.

I think it was around 1976 when I saw the first two-in-one combining a radio and a cassette player. My elder brother, home on leave from the army, showed us his pride and joy. It was the size of our weary, 10 year old transistor radio but the quality of radio reception was better and one could record music from the radio directly on to cassettes. Besides, it could easily pick up Radio Ceylon which, I had discovered, played the latest English numbers.

It must have been ’81 or ‘82 when the Walkman hit the market. It was easily the fanciest gadget I had seen with lightweight headphones producing clear music. One could now listen to music on the move.

Besides, the headphones were a great personal statement.

In due course, I picked up my own music box. It was more powerful and had an excellent radio receiver on which all of us anxiously heard the news of PM Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the subsequent riots.

Towards the mid 80s, records began to disappear from the scene and were only held on to, only by some serious music aficionados.

By the early 90s, the two-in-one was considered passe, the world having progressed to three-in-ones, incorporating a CD player as well, began to appear in the market. Music CDs were however expensive and cost around Rs 600 each. So the cassette player continued to hold the fort.

We hadn’t yet learnt to burn CDs. Home computers were a long way off and in any case didn’t have CD drives either. (That was the era of floppies, remember them?)

Radio, however was making a comeback with the advent of FM stations in the metros. However Vividh Bharati and the English news had long fallen off the popularity charts and AIR introduced an English music channel. I had by then acquired a music system, which in Jamnagar, the place where I was posted, was good only for our music cassettes. On arrival in Mumbai, I tried the local FM station and it was ..... WOW! I had never heard such clear music with the latest English and Hindi numbers. I was hooked.

Things more or less remained constant for the next few years. Then the economy opened up and changes began at a rapid pace. The iPod came, nudging out the Walkman. We began downloading music from the net and issues of music piracy cropped up. The price of CDs dropped. Cassettes were fast disappearing and even car stereos began dropping the in built cassette player in favor of the CD player. Home computers began coming with CD drives and we learnt the joys of writing CDs.

Then a strange thing happened. People began dropping strange jargon – MP2 initially and then MP3. You could now store and play your songs on your home computer, or better still, on the office computer. It became immensely flash to work with your favourite songs playing in the background.

When office admins began cracking down on the storage of songs on office computers, people calmly responded by playing music from their thumb drives. When the office IT expert spoke about virus entering office computers from the thumb drives, people switched to playing songs from their CDs.

While larger versions of iPods were introduced that could hold a few thousand songs, people began buying boom boxes without the CD players. These were simply an amplifier and speaker stuffed into a box. All that they had were a few slots into which you could plug your portable device. The smarter ones simply plugged their home computers directly into the boom boxes.

A new technology that went by the unlikely name of Bluetooth was introduced, which meant that your music, music player and its speaker no longer needed to be wired up.

Smartphones entered the milieu. Suddenly you didn’t need the iPod even while going for a walk. The smartphone itself stored the music and you listened to it over the Bluetooth  earpiece, unencumbered by wires.

By the time you managed to fill your smartphone with music, the world had moved on again. Apps were available to download your playlist from the net, without the need to store music files.

Throughout these fast technological changes, I managed to hold on to my FM Radio player listening loyally to my favorite RJs – Malishka, Hrishi K and others.

Then Alexa entered our home. With her soft mellifluous voice, she began playing any number, old or new, that we could think of. No storage needed, just great music from a cylinder a fraction of the size of our radiogram. I believe she’ll switch on the lights, and dim them too, in the not too distant future. I’m seriously considering taking her to work as well!