The language was Bangla, but the accent and the stories, distinguishably Chinese. An avid radio listener, my father tried to inculcate this dying habit into his sons. FM is not real radio. Short wave is.
Radio Beijing with its waves traversing the Himalayas captivated me. Stories from China, read out in textbook Bangla with a Chinese accent that sounded so sweet. I didn't know of the concepts of propaganda and censorship and I enjoyed every bit of it. Radio Moscow (now Voice of Russia), Voice of America and the good ol' Beeb. Later as I learnt to read, comic books took over followed by Doordarshan, then cable TV and now the internet. I no longer hear the crackle of shortwave. It's only the choked nostrils singer who seems to be blowing throughout the frequency modulation spectrum that my neighbours irritate me with.
A few weeks ago a telecaller from WorldSpace called up, I wasn't interested even at Rs 1999. I hardly listen to music these days. But when I eyed the new Philips RL241 Digital Clock Radio on a showroom display, I couldn't resist the temptation. Primarily because it had an alarm that would play me a station of my choice at the designated hour. I always wanted to own an alarm radio. Smaller and slimmer than a standard audio cassette case, it costs Rs. 440.
Other features:
FM (87-108 MHz) and MW (520-1610 KHz)
LCD display (for time and the frequency tuned to)
9-button control panel
Scrolling frequency and volume controls
1 foot long aerial
Wrist strap with detachable rear stand
Power:
2 X 1.5V AAA Batteries
DC 4.5V adapter socket
The radio is a wonderful companion, even in places where there is no electricity, there's radio. In an era when mobile phones have inbuilt radios, why did I feel the need for a separate piece of electronics (the mobile's got an alarm too)? I can watch TV on the PC with a TV tuner card but we like to watch TV on TV, don't we?
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Was doing a story on the mad rush for money at the B-schools and was somewhat lost in the highest, mean, median, laterals, PPOs, foreign and domestic. The last time I saw so many numbers together was writing my dissertation for that master's degree. Got the degree but didn't master anything. Atleast not yet. After a mind numbing day eight hours at a stretch before an obsolete PC which takes an entire Himmesh Reshammiya song just to launch MS Word (you can imagine how excruciating the experience is), I come home to spend another five (if not more) hours before a-still-not-yet obsolete PC. And what do I find? A tag!
It's been ages since the last one came my way and I was already feeling excommunicated by the blogging community. Thanks to the makeover girl - AFJ - I have something to post about tonight. But she, like a shrewd public prosecutor wants me to confess my guilt. I'm in the dock and all evidence go against me. Do I have a choice?
Culinary Guilt: I'm a reasonably good cook. Atleast my friends tell me so, purportedly because if I wasn't they would have to do all the cooking. The secret behind those tingling taste buds is monosodium glutamate. It may not be healthy, but I use it a lot.
Literary Guilt: The books on my bookshelf are not an indicator of my reading habits. The stuff that I usually read is under the mattress.
Audiovisual Guilt: I claim to be a movie maniac and have built a sizeable collection of movies without having watched many of them.
Musical Guilt: In middle school my favourite music director was Bappi Lahiri
Celebrity Guilt: In school I was the House Captain and maintaining the house bulletin board was one of my responsibilities. Then the Shahrukh bug bit me. Next day the principal summons me to her office and orders all the Shahrukh pics and articles off the board. "'Negative influence' on the juniors," that's what she termed me. The next year I was caught on camera wearing Bobby Deol 'Barsaat' glasses.
I now summon five others sinful souls to confess their guilt:
Adi
Aklanta
Atul
Rita
Rohit
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Delhi Metro - the pride of the capital. Makes commuting a pleasure. The steel, cement and glass of the stations may not be photogenic, but sometimes you feel tempted to go shutter-happy. And many of us do. But if you read the long list of dos and don'ts somewhere lost in the long ad-glowed walls of the tunnels leading to the station, you'll find a sentence stating that photography is prohibited. Similar signs are all over the nation and beyond. Places of 'strategic security' are out of viewfinder bounds. Bridges, dams, radio stations, museums, historic places, courtrooms ... What purpose do these menacing signboards serve?
Cameras have shrunk; there are ones in wrist watches too. The one will malafide intentions will always have a way. What harm can an innocent museum photo cause? A duplication of a masterpiece? Or a plan to burgle those royal jewels? Imitation is the best form of flattery. The security systems and the guards also have to earn their worth.
If sketching is allowed inside courtrooms, why not let us have some photography and some moving images coupled with sound. We've had enough of the melodramatic courtroom scenes in the movies, it's the age of reality TV. We'll refrain from using the flash and the digital cameras don't make shutter noise. If we can watch Saddam and his courtroom drama, we also want Manu Sharma.
Don't take a screenshot of this webpage!
Can the above message really stop anyone from doing it? That's my point.
Why then the useless expenditure of the honest (??) taxpayer's (my) money on the obviously useless signboards (they can't possibly do anything with that)?
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Back in the overwhelmingly non-vegetarian society, eggs were a sticky favourite during Holi. This time around, I believe they exercised a little restraint in cracking those shells on an unsuspecting reveller's head, owing to the avian influenza scare. No one minded the eggs though, because eggs make for a good conditioner. The powdered blue (used for whitening the whites - rather making them patchy blue) mixed with mustard oil was another preferent. But the silver paint, grease and other unwashable substances are always the most unwelcome.
Post-Holi baths have traditionally been long drawn affairs. Kerosene, mustard oil, lime, lots of soap and litres and litres of warm water, were all put into the service of skin unstaining. This year due to limiting the exchange of colours exclusively to gulal, the bath was neither long nor agonising.
As kids, we used to derive sadistic pleasure on seeing the remnants of our Holi inflicted colours on others visible even a week after. If the festivities are limited to the non-toxic way, what a wonderful festival this is - minus the eve-teasing part. This festival is about enjoyment and mild flirtations, but the excuse, bura na mano, Holi hain (don't mind, it's holi) is indeed inexcusable. Colours, colours and more colours and then pour some water. The entire nation goes red, yellow, green and pink.
Fun it is, only if the cleaning is also as enjoyable as the application. Going for an assignment with green ears and magenta nails the next day isn't what I look forward to.
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Anil Kumble or Jumbo - the latter more suitable for the news headlines - scalped half a chiliad wickets in test Cricket. The engineer's unspinning legspin at a medium pacer's speed baffled many a batsman. When he pocketed ten Pakistani wickets at Delhi's Feroze Shah Kotla, I was running in and out of my Shillong home to update the boys playing outside; and during my last run, when I broke the record-equalling news, a kid innocently asked me, "Who took the remaining one?"
Yesterday, I witnessed another great happening in the world of cricket. Australia scored 434/4 - the highest score in limited overs cricket, only to last for 299 balls. The gritty South Africans, the real challengers to the Kangaroo stranglehold on international cricket finished with 438/9, thereby winning the series 3-2.
872 runs in a ball less than a hundred overs, the chasing side down to their last wicket, winning with only a ball to spare. The greatest one day international ever? Maybe. Maybe not. The greatest because the opponents were the mighty men from down under, and no one ever posted such an obscenely huge figure on the scoreboards. Maybe not, because the opponents there were not India and Pakistan. But again yes, simply because I didn't catch the last Indo-Pak series, nor did I watch Kumble's latest entry into the recordbooks. But watch the fifth one day between South African and Australia? I did.
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A few weeks ago a telecaller from WorldSpace called up, I wasn't interested even at Rs 1999. I hardly listen to music these days. But when I eyed the new Philips RL241 Digital Clock Radio on a showroom display, I couldn't resist the temptation. Primarily because it had an alarm that would play me a station of my choice at the designated hour. I always wanted to own an alarm radio. Smaller and slimmer than a standard audio cassette case, it costs Rs. 440.
