Playing The Past

The other day I received a picture of an audio cassette and a pencil, with a message ‘Future generations will never know the unique relationship between an audio cassette and a pencil.’ How true! The sentence reminded me of my huge collection of audio cassettes, and took me down the memory lane, to my home (where I spent my childhood), where a cupboardful of cassettes are ‘resting peacefully’.

Cassettes and I go back a long way! When I was a toddler, my mom used to play nursery rhymes for me in a cassette player, which was considered to be a luxury during those days. As I grew older, my bond with these reels became stronger. My brother’s collection mostly comprised of English albums and Ghazals, which he used to boast of. George Michael, Michael Jackson, Bryan Adams, Pretty Woman, Enigma, Pankaj Udhas, Jagjit-Chitra, Ghulam Ali and the list is endless. Out of these, many albums were re-recorded – borrowing the cassette from a friend, and recording the songs on a blank audio cassette through music system. It proved to be cheaper than buying a new one. The struggle for hunting for the cassette and recording it had a different charm altogether!

My collection was slightly different than my brother’s. I, being a typical Hindi-movie fan, mostly had a collection of Bollywood movies, ‘Super-Duper Hits’ and Indipop. Aah! Indipop... Yet another musical craze of the 90s. I still remember buying my first audio cassette ever – Alisha Chinoy’s ‘Made In India’. Alisha Chinoy, with her mesmerising voice, reigned supreme on the Indipop charts, and I could not resist riding my cycle over three kilometres to by the ‘Made In India’ album. I never knew that my love for Alisha, will help me connect musically with my husband years later.

Once as a kid, when I was travelling to Bangalore by train, with my family, I had prepared a separate hand-bag to satisfy my musical urge. I had packed half a dozen Hindi movie cassettes and a walkman to help me spend two days in the train... and it did work, successfully! The after effects were terrible, though. I was in motion even when I was sitting (thanks to the 48-hour train journey) and could hear music instead of people talking (Courtesy: Listening to music. Non-stop for 48-hours. Well, almost!)

My father used audio cassettes in a special way. He re-recorded old audio cassettes in his voice with personal messages and sent us through airmail when he was overseas, away from the family. He continued the tradition when my brother went to the boarding school. Like hand-written letters, these personalised audio cassettes overflowed with emotions, making us feel the presence of our loved ones!

The worst experience was when the cassette got stuck in the music player. And, when you tried to remove it, the reel came trailing behind. Haw! But, that's when the pencil came handy. Slowly and gracefully, it helped to wind the reel back... and the only thought that came to our mind then was, "Thank God for the pencils, phew!"

Audio cassettes took over LPs (Long Play played on the gramophone), and were replaced by LPs’ smarter & sophisticated cousin CDs (Compact Disc). New technologies keep getting invented, nudging out the old ones - which do their bit, enjoy the spotlight and are lost in the oblivion. Today, these audio cassettes have a zero market value, but for me they are priceless. They take up a special place in my heart... and cupboard!
PS: All I need is few of these from my collection and a music player to sit back, enjoy the music & slip into trance!