Radio then, radio now...

Every night from when i was 10 year old, one of my definite activities at night was listening to " Binaca geet mala". The day was incomplete without it..and then there was" Fauji Bhaiyon Ke liye", before or after that. Can't recollect for sure. I still can hear Ameen Sayani's voice like yesterday though.
By the time i started listening"Binaca" had become "Cibaca" and " Ceylon Radio" was" Vividh Bharti", but geet mala stayed on. And i continued listening to it. When there was nothing to listen to Vividh Bharti, i turned to vernacular songs on AIR.
We had a Old Panasonic Radio that was about my size when i was ten years old. Most of the time, my grandmom would listen to Tamil sings on AIR on that. Then came transistor, and we got a new philips transistor around early 90's.
That was my liberation. I walked, studied, slept, played with that transistor in tow, Literally!
Mom could never understand how i could study with the radio on and me singing along. Eveyone needs a certain conditioning to approach studies..music was mine i guess. As long as there was some music in the background , i could get anything done. I could even study biology , and hindi grammar(for the ignorant souls, this is what is called learning " greek and latin").
I have been taken to task for the leaving behind the radio hanging on the mango tree after my post lunch reading session- for those who think i am fibbing, plase check with my mom, she'll fill in the details. The tree unfortunately was cut down some years later as it decided to be a little modern and not bear any fruits. It was one of those low branched, easy to climb trees with plenty of room for all of us cousins to sit and talk. We loved it. May its soul rest in peace.

Back to our topic, the Idiot box became popular around this time, and listening to the radio became passe'. I went away for my studies and radio became a part of my childhod memories. I started collecting Audio cassetes, and subsequently CD's. But something was never quite the same.
I am not a sucker for retro being in fashion again...same for retro stuff too. But Radio is something i am definitly thrilled to have back...and how!

From the "Radio city" at bangalore in 2001 to the 10 stations that i flipped through today morning...radio rocks. In the gap between the vividh bharthi days and the revival of radio i owned Tape/ cassette player/ CD players and an iPod. All the while it never felt like listening to the radio. And i kept wondering why?

After much deliberation, bought myself a hand'sfree last week and have started to listed to radio during my long commute to office and back..Feels like old days. And i realized what makes radio tick for me. It is i guess the compilation of songs i get to listen( today's theme was rain), and above that, it is the anticipation of not knowing which song will come next...

Long live radio!!!