My siblings and I were brought up on a heavy dose of Doordarshan. Sometimes if we twist the TV antenna far enough, we would catch a hazy glimpse of DD Metro too. I am pretty sure everyone is familiar with the popular Friends series. Well I used to follow it in the little ‘TV and Movie section of The Telegraph newspaper, yeah imagine that!!
I was a huge fan of English songs, and during those days, there were hardly any programmes that played my favorite numbers. My only solace was a 15 minute radio series which was telecast every day between 2:45 pm to 3:00 pm.
The school bus would to drop me a good 500m away from home at around 2:30 pm and I used to run like crazy to reach home. I would throw off my shoes in the veranda, slam the doors and tune in to the radio.
During the day my Mom would often mess with the frequencies to play Assamese songs. And I had to reset all the settings. Ahh so frustrating!! 🙂
With bated breath, I would pray for Maria or Backstreet boys. Oh the joy of listening to Westlife and N Sync!! The suspense of what awaits next and sometimes the disappointment when not one of my favorite songs are played. No one was supposed to disturb me during those 15 minutes.
Through the series, I got introduced to Carpenters and Scorpions. And MLTR too.
When I listen to That’s Why you go Away, I still imagine myself sitting on the floor, next to the radio, my ears sticking to the speakers. I am filled with a sudden
gush of strange nostalgic feeling, as if something is missing, as if
something has been left behind and beyond my grasp.
On another note, this is what radio does to me these days!!
Well, I do not have any nostalgic good memories of the radio other than my grandfather listening intently to news in all sorts of languages including hindi, sanskrit and urdu which he did not even understand.
But the end image, of ruining the song, i've experience that. I've almost completely stopped listening to the radio due to three factors:
1. Non stop trying-to-be-funny blabber
2. Too may advertisements per song
3. Too may repetitions of the same song with very few to negligible options.
Whatever happened to surprising you with new songs on music programmes rather than putting the same 10 songs in random order.
Unfortunately same thing with TV these days with both songs and movies. No surprises, reruns and reruns of rerruns for more than a month.
Awww…loved this post. Brough back my own memories. Our bangalore station would play english songs on saturday between 12- 12.30 and i would wait to hear George michael's wham songs. stevie wonders " i just called to say i love you" was a regular song in listeners choice those days. Thank you for this lovely post.
It was an interesting read and I could relate to it.My first exposure to a radio was a transistor radio!!
You described everything so easily, yet beautifully. It was very interesting.
And who can forget Backstreet Boys, N Sync, Ricky Martin, Venga Boys and Spice Girls.
Also, F.R.I.E.N.D.S was/is my life. I am so impressed by how you updated yourself on this series through a newspaper.
How sweet Rajlakshmi! I did much the same thing, except maybe a couple of decades ahead 😀 We got our first TV in '83 – I was 20. The radio was my best friend. I used to be so excited to be able to tune in to Radio Australia.
I never listened to radio much but these days I listen to it daily. We always had cable tv at home and I spent all my free time watching it.
I need the radio when I am writing!!
I remember returning from school and listening to songs on radio. TV did not have much to offer those days.
I too was more glued to radio than TV 🙂 thanks for writing in 🙂
Yeah, my childhood days were kinda similar. My father hated TV altogether and the only channels we ever watched was DD National. We didn't get Metro at our place. 🙁
I didn't listen to any radio, but we had cassettes of English songs. MJ, Boney M, Aqua and Vengaboys and some more which I don't know. These are the oldest set of songs I have heard. Always remind me of those wonderful days we spent. 🙂
I listened to those songs too. Seems we all are the nineties people 😀 Still are 😀
🙂 this reminded me of childhood days , we did not have a tv .. and then i came to hostel in school and thats where I saw TV for the first time 🙂 properly … we had that BIG huge RADIO .. in my grandfathers room .. and we would listen to it when he allowed us 🙂
but year doordarshan was the IN Thing in those days although i must say it did a GOOD job tooo and had some lvoely programs
Bikram
Yeah, the programmes those days are still one of the best – Vyomkesh, Dekh bhai dekh.. ahh so many. I still watch them on youtube 😛
Ooh how I miss listening to the Radio myself.
Those amazing songs..back to back..no ads (lesser!)
They were beautiful.. You brought back fond memories 🙂
true, the adds just kill the show these days. Thanks for stopping by.
haha! My childhood revolved around Doordarshan too 😛
Check out 'Young and beautiful' by Lana Del Ray! it is awesome 🙂
I love MLTR too!
Oh yeah I love that song. So soulful!! 🙂
Your have brought out the nostalgic feeling very vividly.. I was also transported to my childhood – we had to go to our neighbor's house to watch TV, B/W ones. It came to our household much later…A good touching post…
I am so happy it brought back good memories 🙂 thanks for stopping by
Your post is really nostalgic. TV came much later in life. The songs which we heard so often are still fresh in memory.
I too feel the songs of old days are fresh in my memory than the new ones 🙂
I loved music growing up, loved hearing music on the radio, then rushing to the story to collect the records to play on my record player. I could listen to music for hours on end. Still can.
I used to record the English songs from the radio as they were pretty expensive in the stores 🙂 and would listen to them all day long.
Sometimes, too many options do spoil the charm!
Destination Infinity
true that … thanks for writing in.
I love the nostalgia you mention.What memories that brings back and hey, what a coincidence that I read this on the same day as my music-related status update on FB 😀
Love that last picture. So true, right?
hahaha yeah coincidence!! Right, the last pic is spot on 😀
I so miss those days..Radio that played music more and advertisements less. Backstreet boys, britney spears, madonna made us happy. Simple things made us happy.
true about the advertisements!! gosh those adds kill the whole experience. Yeah simple things made us happy.
I dont have very many radio memories, but LP player. And like you, I get that intense nostalgic feeling on listening to some oldies which were played on our LP payer then. And that ecard is sooo apt 😀
same pinch!!! hahaha I know radio these days spoil half of my songs 🙂
Well we had no TV in our young days so we sat glued to the radio. I guess we learned to entertain ourselves mostly by reading books and playing with friends in building compounds. My kids look at me and go huh?
hahaha 😀 yeah even my little cousins don't understand 😀
Thank you for sharing your story 😀