Shreya Verma
When I was born, my parents decided to settle in Delhi from Bihar and for most parts of my childhood, we did not have cabled television. While thinking about the role radio played in my life, only one visualisation comes to mind that is of me dancing on songs played on the radio during an afternoon of the summer vacations in the middle of the room while my mother would be making lunch for me in the kitchen and my sister would be in tuition while my father would be out for work. Since most of the presence radio had in my life was during childhood, I didn’t rely on it for any informative content, just good music and bollywood gossip present as breaking news, and most importantly jingles. Whether it is 98.3 Mirchi, 104.8 Ishq Fm or quite obviously Red fm 93.5′ ‘Bajaate Raho’ jingle, I remember every word by heart and can sing it without any mistake in sleep if need be. That being said, i used to sing gibberish when I first learnt those jingles and because of two reasons. One, being a child I did not understand many words, I was not that smart of a child you see. And second, our radio was so old and useless that it produced more noises than it played music. I have missed on a lot of cartoon shows that my friends have watched but this essay definitely took me on a nostalgic journey that I wasn’t expecting. I wouldn’t say radio has shaped me into the person I am today but it was the first thing I was passionate about, something I looked forward to. I knew which channel to play exactly at what time to get the best songs and my hands are a lot stronger by switching the channels of that radio every other minute as it was kept at a height. Like every other part of my childhood, I adore this part of it as well. For me, no matter how much I study about it, I guess radio would always just be an annoying big box that plays music during summer vacations.
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