Musical Memories

I have collected a hugh number of cassettes over the last dozen years. Since my acquisition of an iPod, these have been gathering dust, and blocking up space. The plastic and paper liner notes have faded and frayed. But I still hesitated to throw them out.

Finally after much prevaricating, I decided to pack them up and gift them to a friend who has acquired a high end fancy antique music system, you know the ones which have speakers the size of a small child, a cassette player the size of a small briefcase and lots of wires and blinking lights.

Music to me has always associated with the certain phases in time; some of my key musical moments associated with select tapes are…

Grammy Hits 1984

This was indelibly associated with my first introduction to Delhi. In Nagpur I had been in the thrall of pop-star wannabes. I saw MIthuda channel Travolta in Disco Dancer half a dozen times. But here was the real stuff-everybody in school was talking of Jackson and Lionel Richie and that weird guy called Prince. This tape got worn out with repeated periods of time- I can still remember all the eight songs on this tape.

Rattle and Hum: U2 (1992)
This is forever associated with tumult-burning buses during the Mandal agitation, burning students, burning tires and the first disastrous attempt at trying to fit into a hip South Delhi college.

BAD-LL Cool J(1993)

My introduction to Hip Hop. This was a pirated tape which was bought for 16 Rupees and was played on a walkman repeatedly before the walkman broke down completely.

Annie’s Song: John Denver (1999)

The theme song for my stay at IIM Bangalore-ok I know that the song was released in the 70s but I became very familiar with this in 1999. My neighbor was a senior who had a habit of having night long encounters with rum and marijuana. After getting suitably high, he used to play this song at full volume between 2 to 6 AM, disregarding my sleep and any quizzes/exams the next day. The very same person is now the Vice-President of a Very Big Company and gives a sheepish grin when reminded of this song