Innocuous words, lovingly spoken by an almost 15 years younger me, in front of Kala Kunj, Hazratgunj, Lucknow- the best place to buy the latest English tapes (cassettes, as we fondly called them, in those days). We lived in a fairly open-restricted world where there was not too much exposure to Channel Vs & MTVs & Vh1s and life was largely governed by free will (without Eminem throwing punches in your face singing im Not Afraid- egging you to buy his latest album- Out NOW In Stores). We picked the artists and the music we liked- by glancing through the album cover (I thought Megadeth's Euthanasia had a great cover- little babies hung up on clotheslines- it was only later when I learnt the fine filters and layers in Photoshop that I realised it wasn't such a marvel after all!) and the list of songs at the back- shrouded in mystery as just lines of text, waiting to be transformed into the next hummable tune.
A new tape meant crinkling the soft cellophane wrapper off, opening the acrylic case with a click and then inserting the tape into the player, and turning it on -LOUD! (at that time, I couldn't understand why my parents would scold me for having short hearing- I realise now that its terribly irritating to listen to some gobbledygook when a thousand chores are running amok in your head).
I still have about two hundred of those tapes- some of them are twenty years old- kept like antique treasures in the top shelf of my library- sadly, they've given way to newer CDs (ah, the joy of placing the CD in the tray and listening to a Pink Floyd concert right in your bedroom!) and even newer MP3s (I have a whole stash of them in all my laptops)
But the real joy of the music was in the times of yore. Never had waiting so much for a tape (some specially requested numbers had to be ordered from someplace else) been so enjoyable. I would look forward to the day when my requested tape would arrive & then ask Mom if I could please buy the tape (if I ran out of my princely pocket money of one hundred rupees), rush through dinner (taking small peeks at my recent acquisition which lay undisturbed in its brown paper bag) and then play it for a whole week non-stop, end to end, till I memorised the 5-second gap between songs.
Now, if I like a song I've heard, to add to my thousand-strong collection of MP3s, I just google & download it- the entire process taking less than two minutes.
A two week wait, to a two minute one now.
And guess what, I'd take the two week wait anytime!
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