Cassettes & Memories

My most treasured possession as I grew up was my cassettes. It traveled from one house to another. In my school days the collection was small and would fit in a few shoe boxes, as I grew up it occupied more and more space – from shoe box to carton to a wall lined with cassettes.

I think the first Tape recorder which we got was a Philips mono player when I was in my middle school. Most cassettes were Bangla which my kaku’s (uncle) got from Kolkata. I started listening to Rabindra Sangeet, Adhunik Songs by Hemanth Kumar, Runa Laila and there were some lovely plays, stand-up comedy. There were also Hindi music – but mostly maa would choose them from recent movied. It’s only in Xth when we got the TV (before that TV viewing was limited to Air Force Club House) and I got introduced to Grammy Awards that I bought few English cassettes – Probably it was Madonna – Like a virgin, MJ – Bad, Wham.

By XIth / XIIth – I had a sizeable collection of cassettes and before leaving home for my engineering college – my most prized possession was my Walkman (again Philips – that was the only brand). Since then I always had a personal music playing system with me – multiple Walkman, CD player, car stereo (which held me in good stead in my 2 hr+ drives in Delhi) and since last 10 years it has been mostly mp3/4 and in recent days streaming through you tube, sound buzz, apps – gaana, wynk, Saawn (introduced to me my daughters!!). Earlier I walk the streets of Vijayawada where I did my engineering college with an empty cassette and list so that somebody could record my favorite songs, now I surf the apps and make my playlist and keep them online so I can play it from anywhere in the world.

But can these play lists replace the lingering memories of every single cassettes. For a long time music which is my soul – these cassettes were my life line:

Me & My cassettes ...Goodbye!

In all my travels, personal or family, from Kanpur to Vijayawada to Arunachal Pradesh to Assam to Delhi to Dalhousie…my Walkman will be in my pocket or backpack to give me company in my moments of loneliness.

In all my parties – solo, couple, family, group, large gatherings – my cassettes have played nonstop making people laugh, cry, brood.

From my first ride on my Wagon R with Reema to both my kids being born to 1 lac km’s which my Wagon R drove – we played songs from movies, to rock concerts, to Ravi Shankar to Gazals to Krishnamurty to Guruji speaking to Gayatri mantra, to nursery rhymes – as the wheels of the car started moving the cassette got inserted into the player...nonstop till 3 years back when I bid adieu to my beloved Wagon R.

Now a days, I still treasure the time when I listen to the Bangla songs or few rare Hindi songs, gazals which I play in my 12 yr old 5 in 1 Philips player once a week.They bring back memories of a time gone by...

These are not cassettes but these are moments of my life which got imprinted on the brown tapes along with the words written painstakingly by the writer and the sang from the deepest recess of the singers soul. As I wipe the dust off these cassettes trying to decide what to keep & what not to keep – I keep travelling back in time remembering the story behind each of them….thousand songs in your pocket neatly tucked in an app cannot replace this.