Audio and Video

I was posting this song "Lovebug" on facebook today and it struck me, how much those late 70s n early 80s pop songs have bonded us cousins together as a family. Of course, when it comes to songs, we must not forget their players or the people who got the songs to us in the first place too!
Now, where would we be without our age old electronics? Back then, the early 80s were the nascent stages of the great electronic revolution of India. We all started out with Black and White televisions - our Bharat Electronic TV at NN played only 2 channels, that too with a good deal of thumping on the top and the sides. It had a dial to change channels, there were numbers from 1 to 10 (why, I still don't know when only 1 would work and 2 was at the most a very, very fuzzy picture of 1). The one in Sahakar was better...Keep in touch with Dyanora..la la la laaa.. (ok, it's Dyanora tv but I still cannot say just Dyanora, I have to say the entire punch line, somethings just don't leave your brain). That too had dials instead of buttons to change channels and volume. Of course, Chitta's place at Andheri had the same Dyanora, while Periappa had the same Bharat Electronic Tv.
Our tape recorder, was Philips, that small thingy you saw in the 70s movies, single cassette deck, one red button for record, one blue for stop (weird na?) and white buttons for play, forward and rewind. We had fun with that thing, once we recorded over Amma's bhajan casette, all of us singing off key voices mein the song from Mr. India (na maangu sona chandi, hum maange maafi didi). Boy, my mom had a shock when she played that bhajan cassette (imagine Krishna Krishna Mukunda Janardana, Krishna Govinda..Na Mangu Sona Chandi!!!!). It served us well, till we eventually discarded it and got that Dubai return Votra crap for sometime, which kept looping the cassette tape inside..Eventually we became experts aat unwinding the tape with a pencil and sticking it back inside again to play. Then we got the Karaoke machine, and had fun times with it (Rajan mama is Hemant Kumar reincarnated, I swear).
At Sahakar, who can forget the DECK!! Sony...I still believe that even professional systems don't hold a candle to that thing! Mama would play "Hey Mickey" in it and you could hear it all the way upto the main gate...plus the effects were just awesome! Some of our best song memories are in that one...Roll Jackie Roll, Highway Bus, Santa Maria and of course the Laughing Song, LoveBug and Love to Love Baby (which now I think we censor from our kids, back then our parents made it sound like someone was doing a rather difficult potty, so we kids never realised what it was in reality). There was a Sony smaller boombox, again a Dubai return thing which went to Marol eventually.
When the color tv revolution came, all of us got the same model simultaneously, Videocon in baby Attai's Periappa's and our place and Sony in Chitta and Sahakar places. I forget which one was there in Marol, I think it was a Dubai return model, not sure, Vidya or Sandy can throw some light there.
Then came the VCPs (Video cassette players) and VCRs (Video cassette recorders), who can forget endless re-runs of Tom n Jerry, Kidsongs and Jamai Raja (yups, Archie and Vidya were huge fans of this movie) at Sahakar. In those days, only one house had the goodies, that's how parents controlled tv viewing in kids. Now we have too many gadgets in all houses, but then again times are different now.

I think our dad was technologically advanced atleast where computers were concerned, still remember the good ol x386 machine, only DOS, Windows 3.1, Pacman and Bricks in that one. All we did was play Pacman and Bricks. And it had that 5.1/4 inch floppy drive, you ACTUALLY had to LOCK the floppy in for it to read!!! We got a x486 and then an assembled Pentium soon enough. FYI - the assembled type model with the extra large back still exists in my office, when I walked in the first time 3.5 yrs ago, I felt I had gone back in time!
Even internet was text only browser in those days, all we could do was chat, nothing else, till the assembled thing came, then we had that mtnl dialup connection (how many people remember the sound? My mind still replays it when I lose the connection occasionally at work and have to reconnect back).
Alright, I am rambling now, but what I really want is for my dear cousins to put in their memories here too of all the good music and movies and times we had with our devices...

Waiting to hear from you guys,
Siya

P.S:- Special mention here for Gautam, our cassette king! Every Rakhi, he would gift us latest audio cassettes of popular Hindi/English movies/songs...he was and still is the bestest brother on Rakhi days ever!!

Hand me downs and Hand me ups...

Well, hello peeps, I am back with another mia familia post...this one is about the ubiquitous hand me downs that we all grew up on as kids. 

Well, the rule of our entire family (esp the maternal side), was that the older ones got the new stuff and later it got passed to the ones down the line. This made the older ones (esp me, as I was the oldest) kind of smug about the "new" stuff we got. Of course, one realizes much later that the younger ones have it much better later in life, the older ones are the guinea pig on whom parents experiment and learn the fine art of parenting better. But, anyways, sticking to the topic now..I actually liked the hand me downs and even wanted them, which I got occasionally from the Viswanath side of the family. But the age gaps were very wide between me and the next oldest person (Girish was 2 yrs older but studied in a different board in a different city and Vinod was 4 yrs ahead of me). The only hand me downs (HMDs) I got were clothes occasionally from Sudha (Girish's older sister). 

In the Narayan side, with clothes, Myself, Sandy and Shilpu were the proverbial 3 musketeers. We got the exact same clothes in 3 different colors. The logic was that we could exchange and Sandy's and mine would get passed to Shilpu eventually, so lucky pig got 3 sets in 3 different colors instead of just one set (you see here how parents hoodwink the eldest one? Make them feel special but actually they are being royally shortchanged??)
Anyways, there was a time when for Virmani Mama's wedding reception, Shilpu and Sandy got the exact same red fan like pleated dress (which btw holds the distinction of the most passed on outfit, even Vinoo wore it once as a baby and we got pics clicked of him...such a cutie he was then!!). I got a white pleated outfit with a red coat, which I wasn't too happy about because the other two were officially a team and I wasn't :-( but then again, the adults brainwashed me into thinking I was the Queen and all! Of course, once the pics came out, I did look like the Queen (he he he...).  Clothes also went in reverse order (Archana is gonna kill me for this), after Archu went to Bangkok, a lot of her t-shirts came to Vidya as she was thinner in those days. Our parents pathologically bought oversized outfits for us in those days, otherwise you would grow out of it too soon. of course, you would look all weird and baggy but style wasn't high on anyone's minds then. Today, Anagha's clothes are passed to Tanisha in the same reverse order!

Hand me down books have their fun moments. I remember passing on books to Sandy and in one of the textbooks I had tick marked with red ball point pen at the end of every chapter and written "very good", "excellent" and all. Sandy was quite bugged because of this. She, in turn would draw eyes all over the text books, this would come to Shilpu, who would complete the face (Sandy, Shilpu and Archu are the family artists). By the time the book would reach Vidya, it would have all sorts of scrawling and drawings and remarks on boring teachers and fat teachers and smelly teachers and goodness knows what not...maximum remarks in history textbooks I think (our teachers should really re-think that subject) and also hindi textbooks (considering that hindi teachers were generally fat and smelly and wore sleeveless blouses showing off sumo wrestler arms for some strange reason). I still love old books and still buy them from old bookstores. Especially the ones with scrawlings, they give a glimpse into people's minds at that time.

The best hand me down was a doll which Shilpu had, a Russian type face dressed in Santa's suit for some reason. Shilpu named it "Laali", I felt it was more "Paapi Gudiya" (after a horror movie about a similar looking posssessed doll). Anyways, she was eerily attached to it and eventually, it changed hands to Vidya and then Archana. Archu actually made it a real Paapi Gudiya. She had blacked out one eye with sketch pens and drawn all sorts of voodoo sketches on the forehead and face (the only drawable part made of plastic and rubber, rest of the doll was stuffed with foam). It would give creeps even during the day! Some other toys were preserved, 2 dolls which we had named Julie and Lucy, a police van which made sounds, water toys from Sweden, video games (pocket scramble and rain shower) from UK and numerous Bangkok toys which made their way to Vikas-Vidya too! There was also a Superman outfit belonging to Shilpu which Aditi also wore (Sandy and Vidya's cousin)

Today's parents have lot of pride issues, our parents just thought about saving money and using it wisely for the future. They originated the concept of recycling. Today, we talk about recycling so many things, but we don't recycle the simple things like clothes or books or toys for that matter. 

Well, that's all for now, its a rather long post..please feel free to put your comments on this post about your experiences too. taa taaa!!