Happiness Delivered

Joy of giving is more or less everything. Yet, it has always been debatable whether talking about the small good deeds we do is pompousness or is it required considering it could motivate others. There have been times where I have been very public about even giving a Natraj pencil to a kid, there have also been times where we have very secretively helped someone in need. The conflict still continues in my head as I write this blog. 

Visited Bangalore after 20 months post pandemic, one of the first few things that came to my mind is Belaku Vridhashrama at J P Nagar.

Though I have been visiting the Basavangudi branch of Belaku which is an orphanage much more frequently, somehow remembered the old age home this time. Rains made sure my inperson visit plans kept getting cancelled. I finally decided to call up the place to get their needs and courier(Dunzo) it. 

The needs were extremely minimal. Soaps, shampoos ,grocery etc for 4 of them which costed almost nothing. These things reminded me of my grandmother who is not in Bangalore anymore due to ill health. I was somehow feeling disconnected to Bangalore during this visit, but,  for the first time I saw my grandmother in these things that I bought for the elderly women. 

I penned a small emotional note in an Ink pen as:

I used to stay in Bangalore with my grandmother who is not in this city anymore due to ill health. I see my grandmother mother in all 4 of you and sending few things out of love and wishing you all live healthily and happily ever after ...

Your Grand Daughter,

Chinku 

I pasted the note on the parcel. The courier delivery partner arrived and sounded pretty excited to know that he will have to deliver it to the old age home. I was worried if the rain drizzles would affect my letter written in ink pen. He told me that he would take special care of it which made me happy. 

As I happily satisfactorily resumed my daily works, I got a call from Belaku that the delivery partner has not only delivered the parcel but is also happily spending some time with the elders 😊

Episode 2: Bready Steady Go ... / (Real Warriors n Startup Stars series)

Whenever I see a movie in which the Protagonists suffer (in any way) ,after the movie, I usually see a few happy pics of theirs on social media to convince myself that they are happy and healthy in real life and it was just a movie. Similarly  I watched Kannada movie Face 2 Face, saw the hero suffer, as a regular drill, went to  see @rohithbp on social media . Not only did I find him healthy and happy but also successful with 

BREADY STEADY GO...

India's First air fried food truck founded by Rohith Bhanuprakash and Dhedheepya Prithvi in 2017. It started in Jayanagar , Bangalore(somewhere diagonal to Maiyya's)  and is currently at V. V. Puram Basavangudi ( Diagonal to Jain College) 

First franchise began at Gokulam Mysore in cafe format in the year 2019 .

First franchise at Bangalore began at Jayanagar , Bangalore in 2021 which is also in cafe format.

Speciality:

They expertise in bread based delicacies. No conventional sandwiches are found here. An out of the box make over to bread is their style. 

Pizza boat , baby burgers , pizza wheels bread Manchurian are few patentable dishes they have. 

The logo looks really cute and attractive. Everything served here looks cute and attractive.

To make it healthier, brown bread is used in all their products.

Air Fried and oil free: Their biggest strength to make it further healthier, everything served here is air fried. Air frier claims to reduce calorie consumption by 70% .

Infact I believe that considering just the oil consumption , it uses 90% less oil. 

For instance, if you need a pan of oil to prepare a plate full of french fries by deep frying it, you would need just 1 spoon of oil to air fry it. 

Though microwave may produce similar results, the effect of radiations and loss of nutrients are still under debate and air frying rules out these risks aswell. 

Now if you are a believer of consuming more oil for good cholesterol, that's fair enough too and that can anyways be compensated in the other meals of your day 

Nominal pricing 

Pure Vegetarian

Jain Menu available 

My take on the dishes I tried:

Barbeque Pizza 

Wheat crust and very conducive smell ,tasted very good and most importantly after effects of eating a pizza (feels like a frog swallowed snake ) which was not there. Also very nominal rates compared to thin wheat crust pizzas of other brands 

Veg Exotic Garlic Bread

Almost felt like a mini pizza. Usage of less oil never affected the taste of it ( Infact applies to everything i tried) 

Baby Burgers

Extremely cute looking , again made of brown bread and yet again after effect of eating was light on stomach . 

Loaded Nachos

Much nominal and nutritive ( with veggies) as compared to the ones I have eaten at multiplexes

Location details: 

V V Puram , Basavangudi , Bangalore :

https://instagram.com/breadysteadygo1144

No 172, Komarla Nivas, Kavi Lakshmeesha Road, VV Puram,, Bangalore, India, 560004

Jayanagar, Bangalore: 

https://instagram.com/breadysteadygojayanagar

No 675, 11th main, opp to head post office, 4th block jayanagar,, Bangalore, India, 560011

Gokulam , Mysore: 

https://instagram.com/bready_steady_go_mysuru

#44/1 2nd block jayalakshmi puram beside Ibaco, Mysore, Karnataka, 570012

Wishing team Bready Steady Go all the best with all their future plans. 

10years down the lane , I hope to see mini bready trucks ( Automated robots) delivering food on the streets of Bangalore.

( Hoping India Government approves automated robotic deliveries soon on Indian streets  or atleast inside gated communities) 

This is my second episode from Real warriors and start up stars and first attempt of writing about a startup so that it could inspire others who want to start their own ventures and thanks for reading :) 

Kuduremukha Trek- Useful Details/Accidental Trekker Series

This blog is to give pin-pointed details and tips about Kuduremukha Trek which may be helpful for trekkers.

Two Broad ways of planning the trek

1. Trekking organizations like Thrilophilia, Get Beyond Limits etc. have weekend treks where the pick up Trekkers from Bangalore on Friday Night and drop them back to Bangalore on Sunday Night. 

This could be the easiest and cheapest way to do it as all the logistics are taken care by them. 

Due to the pandemic they also customise it for you on request if you do not want to travel with a big group

2. Trek via a Home Stay at Kuduremukha - 

Reach Kuduremukha by personal transport, The Home Stay will pick you up from Tyre Circle Kuduremukha and further take care of stay, food and the forest permissions needed for the trek and Jeep transport till the basecamp. In this case, the homestay needs to be provided with a scanned copy of ID proof for forest permissions. Homesstays have an union and almost all homestays have similar charges. 

Main Trek : 

1. Basecamp: Home stay / Trekking Organization will arrange for a Jeep transport to the base camp around morning 7AM

2. Breakfast: will be provided at the home stay , and lunch box will be packed. 

3. Plastic: Kuduremukha being a completely plastic free zone, bags will be checked at the basecamp. Hence, do not carry any plastic materials to the trek. 

4. Water: There are plenty of water streams on the way. Hence 1 water bottle half filled would be sufficient 

5.Total Trek:  The trek to the peak is 10kms . So , reaching the peak and getting back would be 20kms in total.

6. Timing: Camping is not allowed , it's expected that the trekkers are back by 5PM, and start back from wherever they are at 1PM . Thus, starting early would be very beneficial

7. Difficulty level: First 4.5 kms is a combination of uphill, water crossing and plain land. Last 5 kms is uphill in zig zag manner.

8. Half way: Half way @4.5 kms is called onTi Maraa. The view is great at this place. Many trekkers rest here for a while and return back aswell.

9. 3/4th way: There is a water stream at 7kms . Some Trekkers decide to return back after this place aswell.

10. Peak : 1894mtrs /6207ft above sea level. Beautiful view and breeze . However due to clouds you may not get good pictures at times. 

11. Rain: Generally mountains are more prone to rain post noon, so it's always better to finish clicking pictures in the first half of the day. Also Raincoat is a must for this trek. 

12. Footwear: Descends are pretty steep. A proper Trekking shoe / shoe with grip would be very useful . Be very careful while getting down .

13. leeches: Carry dettol water to protect legs from leech bites. If it still bites, don't worry much, it's ok . Just take care and make sure there are no leeches on your dress and bag . 

14. Routes: Routes are not marked. Guides will guide the way. Sometimes if you decide on not completing the trek and come down unguided, there could be couple of streams where there are multiple routes and could be misleading. Please wait near the streams and don't take the wrong route if in doubt as the wrong routes will again lead you back to the peak. 

15. Network: Jio network is available in Kuduremukha. All networks are available at the peak. No networks are available during the trek. 

16. Backpack : Carry, water bottle, lunch box, dettol, eatables(in non plastic containers)  , raincoat, emergency tablets, cap, sun screen( if you believe in it) .

Have a nice trek . Hope this was useful. 

The Sound of Silence / Accidental Trekker Series

PC : duskydawn.com

Kasol Basecamp - Sarpass trek... A batch of 60 people . Orientation program by the strict Field Director followed by self introduction time. While it was nice to listen to trekkers from different parts of India , different professions, age groups and languages,  I saw a hand written note pass from hand to hand. This reminded me of chits being passed during school days ,kids getting caught by the teacher and being asked to run 3 rounds in the school ground as a punishment for their indicipline.If something similar happened here,  running 3 rounds in the Himalayan basecamp would look like military punishment. As I feared and hoped may nobody get caught, the chit reached the hands of the Field Director. 

It was a hand written note from Senior and Experienced trekkers of our batch Ajay Sharma and Sanjay Sharma. Both of them had hearing and speech impairment. Unable to speak and listen, hence they had briefly penned down their introduction and passed it on to the Field Director. We were surprised to know that they had completed many Himalayan treks. Since they liked sarpass trek a lot, this was their second time at sarpass. A typical example to portray that no handicap or impairment can stop us from achieving in life if we have the spirit to do so. 

Though , I wanted to go and congratulate them for their courage and enthusiasm in life, since I did not know a way to communicate to them, I held back myself. Next morning, I saw a few co trekkers communicating to Ajay and Sanjay. I joined them to convey my congratulations to Ajay and Sanjay for their accomplishments. 

What I thought would be just an exchange of smile , congrats , shake hands and say bye turned out to be hours and hours of conversation / Communication in the next 11 days of trek. There was silence yet there was sound. 

Ajay and Sanjay sir enlightened us about Sign languages. There is American Sign Language (ASL) which is taught in schools even in India. It uses only 1 hand. There is also Indian Sign Language( British origin) this uses both hands. 

There are signs for individual alphabets, words , phrases ,names of cities, and much more. We recollected seeing this on DD1 on the Sign language news on Sundays . 

They taught us English alphabets A-Z in Indian Sign language.Now we could communicate with them. Playing Dumb Charades to enact movies came very handy now . They could follow most of our actions , when they couldn't follow something, we knew English alphabets and we would show the spelling of that particular word in Sign language. After cracking the word, they would burst out into laughter expressing how we struggled to express 1 simple word. 

The communication between Ajay and Sanjay was lightening fast and it was impossible for us to understand. Unlike us splitting a word by it's spelling and expressing it, they knew many shortcuts n tricks. Sometimes , we started speaking amoungst ourselves in signed language consciously either to practice or sometimes unknowingly. Ajay and Sanjay would find it very funny to see us talk amoungst ourselves in signed language. Unlike the impression we generally have about speech impaired people, Ajay and Sanjay were very confident. Confident enough to communicate with us, teach us their language. They had a fun side to them. Funny and confident enough to laugh at a joke , laugh at others and laugh at themselves too. 

PC : duskydawn.com

Every evening, I used to sing after the trek. One evening I suddenly realised that may be Ajay and Sanjay cannot hear me and may be they are getting bored. First time in my life I felt guilty for singing. I went and apologised to them if at all I bored them . With a witty humour Sanjay said , Thank God we couldn't hear you 😀. Before we stopped laughing , Sanjay added on a serious note, we cannot listen to your music but we feel your sincerity. I will treasure these words for ever. 

At the end of trek Ajay and Sanjay conveyed me something which i interpreted as have a great flight ahead.( considering i was flying back to Bangalore) . They corrected me and conveyed " Have a great LIFE ahead" 

This spoke a million words about their generosity. Though I can speak, I had never wished anyone till date a Great LIFE ahead. Copying the generosity of Ajay and Sanjay , from that day on, my birthday wishes always say 

Have a great yr and life ahead 😊

The Unexpected Raksha Bandhan with Indian Army at Kashmir/ Accidental Trekker Series

Great lakes of Kashmir YHAI Trek started with more stringent rules than usual. We would pass army camps where photography was banned. Wearing t-shirts with army prints were not allowed as Indian Army could find it objectionable. Further, ID proofs were to be submitted at Satsar Army camp approximately 12,000ft above sea level.Army men were not to be disturbed.For, we were on a trek while, they were on duty serving the nation , almost border of the nation infact.

We reached Satsar army camp, IDs were verified. Army men were very kind and very empathetic unlike what we expected. I curiously tried to know if there is any soldier from Karnataka. Though I found none, I found a brother from the neighboring state Tamil Nadu who was more than glad to hold a conversation in Tamil after a long time. 

While I was busy exploring South Indian traces in Himalayas, Mohit Sharma , a North Indian brother from Meerut,who saw a sister in me went totally unnoticed in my eyes.

We reached our campsite from the army camp. While chit chatting, I was expressing, how I wish I had a brother in life and also, how i see a brother in most boys around me ( and also most film stars I see unlike other friends who usually have a crush on them) . Little did I know that my wish would come true in the next few minutes. 

Indian army paid a friendly visit to our campsite.(Mohit Sharma who saw a sister in me came too) .I saw our cotrekkers singing patriotic songs to the Indian army. I sang a patriotic medley too ( https://youtu.be/0iXME06LVvc)

As I finished singing, my wrist felt cold. I soon realised that an army man was tying a silver bracelet to my wrist. It was Mohit Bhaiyya. He added, " Raksha Bandhan ka samay hai ,toh, iss bhai se apni behen ke liye ek chota so tofa" ( Since its Raksha Bandhan time, a small gift from a brother to his sister) . Happiest and most emotional moment of my life I must say. How exactly did I react at that moment is something I would leave upto your imagination. 

No money , no materialistic gift can be mapped to such unconditional love. Yet, I wanted to gift something to my brother. Though I had many valuables back home, much money in my account which could buy a nice gift, that moment at 12,000 ft, with no mobile network, 3days of walk away from civilization ,I felt helpless as I could give nothing to give my brother though I had so much with me. I soon decided to think of my watch as a Rakhi and tied it to him. The whole campsite went teary eyed. Needless to say how I felt.

I did a few more treks with YHAI later , but, kashmir trek shall always remain special to me for obvious reasons. Mohit Sharma now serves the Ambala cantonment , yet, Kashmir posting shall remain special to him for the same obvious reasons. 

What more, Mohit still has the watch with him, I still have the bracelet with me, we are still in touch, and will continue to be...

Jai Hind 🇮🇳

Episode 1 : The Chemical Warrior. (Real Warriors n Startup Stars Series)

DISCLAIMER: SAD BEGINNING AND A HAPPY ENDING !

Few years back, in December ,I completed Sandhakphu Himalayan Trek and landed on the last camp Rimbik. Since I got mobile network after 3 days, I excitedly called parents.Unlike everytime when parents would be double excited to receive my call, this time there was cold response. My query of ' Is everything alright?' was ignored. My intuition was right, my childhood friend Sarala's father had passed away. 

Sarala a Chemistry M.Sc holder, stood strong by her family, ultra busy with her teaching career and P.hd research, she managed to swallow her sadness. Few months later, I got to know that her brother Girish Anna is unwell and needs AB +ve blood. Since my blood group is the same too, I offered to donate blood the next morning. I was late, Girish Anna decided to leave this world.

Time passed by, Immaterial of what happened, Sarala's hard working nature both at home and at work was a big inspiration. Lockdown began, Sarala told me that she is getting bored at home and also experiencing fatigue. I consoled her saying boredom is common during these tough times. I did not address the fatigue part.But, In my head I laughed out loud. For,her energy levels and hard work have set such high standards that, my parents have adviced me atleast a dozen of times to learn from her and be more hardworking :D 

Small bundles of happiness started coming in her life. Govt. Job came by too. Seemed like bad days were coming to an end. Suddenly an uninvited guest called Acute Myloid Leukemia(AML) entered her life. She seemed mentally strong and confident and said , "Doctors told me that since age is on my side, I can fight it". I tried to second that thought ,came home and tried to google about AML . This made me realise that 'Ignorance is Bliss', it's better to stay ignorant than to google and loose confidence.

Sarala was not ignorant, her chemistry and basic sciences knowledge kept her close to reality. Now was this a bliss or not is something best known to her. Physically, mentally, financially, emotional draining experience, yet ,she fought. 

 Yet again AB +ve blood was needed. Yet again I offered to donate. She told me to be ready to donate in case of emergency. I am glad the emergency never arrived. Her students and friends and family arranged for ~100 bottles of blood in these few months. HB level raised from 4 to double digit. Inspite of such a crisis , she also helped other patients at the hospital to get blood when needed. Epitome of kindness I would say.

A good appetite which dropped to just 1 cup of poridge ( Ganji) per day, again got back to normal. Many months of hospitalization , few days of isolation which must have felt like jail, to back to home is an inspiring journey. 

From difficulty to get up from bed, to start moving around, joining Yoga classes, aerobics and getting back to work is the greatest comeback which has brought happy tears in the eyes of many loved ones. 

A Comeback in Style and with a Bang  :) 

This is Sarala's motivating story from my perspective.Keeping the blog short as I  wait for her to write her own experiences in her blog and motivate many many people......

Episode 0 :Introducing Real Warriors n Startup Stars

A small tale of inspiration can give hope in times of distress. Even a stranger's winning story in a sport, against illness or crisis brings a smile on our face.Many such Real Warriors are around us. A small attempt to narrate such victorious journeys.

On the other hand, success is just a moment. Journey towards it is a long journey. Once you hit success, the world celebrates it. Journey towards success also needs to be enjoyed and deserves to be celebrated.Many such start-up stars are amidst us. Hence a small attempt to narrate such ongoing journeys too.

Presenting series "Real Warriors and Start-up stars" and seeking your encouragement (this time, not to my blog but ,) to the real heroes of my stories :) 

Musical Journey of a 90's Kid :Part 6- Consistently ever after...

Social media made a grand entry to the world and my life too. My orkut profile pic used to be Anushka Shankar with sitar. My confidence levels gradually increased to keep my own pic with sitar on facebook. I slowly started uploading my music bits on an audio platform called SoundCloud and shared it on facebook. Encouragement from facebook and also from trekking lifted my 

Josh( spirit) to an all time High. 

Started a YouTube channel with no major vision but with a realistic picture that, I won't become a viral star overnight. The very thought of posting on social media unknowingly brought in more discipline in my music practice. My generally publicly shy nature helped me to control over posting and keep the upload frequency in moderation.

From requesting friends to please subscribe to my channel, keeping a constant tab on views and comments to just posting and coming out with a thought that, 'I will post when I find time and you watch it when you have time' has been a satisfying Journey.

Gradually, my music videos started helping me create an ecosystem. Many friends started messaging about restarting their music journey seeing my videos( This would be my highest reward and I wish to treasure it) , I inturn got inspired by their song choices and attempted the same, we restarted discussing music , music started filling in the long gap of not being in touch for many years and the journey has been beautiful.

Thank you for reading patiently. My aim was to share my nostalgia as a music listner, music student and most importantly ups and downs of my musical journey and bring in a hope that a start or a restart can happen any time.

Like I already said, no matter what, there are always people ahead of us and there are people behind us, without feeling too proud , without feeling too inferior , not comparing myself with any one and most importantly trying to maintain originality in music and life, I will continue to do what I am doing, Consistently ever after :) 

Photography: Dipankar Halder

Musical Journey of a 90's Kid : Part 5 - Second Innings begins

  

I had a harmonium , a sitar and vocal chords too. Yet there was pin drop silence.

Though my music student fire was off, there were still sparks here and there.During friends' weddings, I would selflessly make an effort to understand their music favourites, make a playlist, personally sit at the music system and play it. Listening to classical music hadn't stopped. I used to practice singing unknowingly while travelling . Going to music classes had reduced but had not stopped completely.

Unlike in the movies, there was no turning point as such in life where I decided to make a come back to music.The comeback also happened gradually and unknowingly just like the travel to silence .

While I was living with my grandmother in Bangalore, she constantly complained of not having a musical environment at home. This led to buying my second sitar (rest of my instruments were still in Dharwad) and also a new voilin for my grandmother. My cousin Sahana was kind enough to gift me her Guitar. An electronic Tabla and Tanpura also followed.

More punctuality started coming in with respect to practicing, attending music classes, conducting singing classes. Sitar playing got faster, Singing pitch went much higher. Able to sing in the original scale of a song gave the biggest confidence in life. Able to decode any tune and play on sitar reassured me that my basics are good . 

Performances opportunities restarted. Biggest encouragement( hoots and Wistles and claps for the first time in life) came by during my Himalayan trek where I sung "Mere Dholna Sun" from Bhol Bhulaiya which has a long breathless Sargam at the end. This song became my signature song and I started singing it on every trek. Just as a tribute to the encouragement I got from the mountains (specifically  for the classical portion) , even today I try to add a classical aalap in everything I sing.

Trekking taught me that, no matter what,  there are people ahead of us and people behind us. The same is true with music too. Not thinking too high of myself, not feeling too inferior either and most importantly not comparing myself with anyone and trying to retain my originality, I decided to continue my musical journey ( and may be life journey also except sports where i feel I need to be the best and I need to win always)....

Musical Journey of a 90's Kid - Part 4 : Mobile Phone -A Curse and a travel towards Silence

Childhood was coming to an end. An era of stardom was coming to an end. No more singing national anthem on school stage everyday. For, school days ended. Singing and getting popular in family functions was vanishing.For , studies were taking over. Mobile phones were taking over big time. Listening to a perfect sound quality MP3 was more attractive than self singing. 100 sms per day and free talk time seemed more interesting than attend music classes and attending live concerts. Elders told not to kill creativity at the cost of consuming entertainment. May be we had turned on the music so loud that their advice went unheard.

Reality started hitting hard. Reality shows started hitting harder. They started settings very high standards of voice sweetness, melody , dressing n grooming,  audio quality and singing pitch. It was impossible to match any of these. Slowly silently and unknowingly I drifted from being a music student to a music listener ONLY and sometimes not even that. 

I was busy listening to other's music. I was busy travelling in traffic and listening to speeding vehicles and honking. I was busy believing that , once upon a time I used to learn music. I had a harmonium , a sitar and vocal chords too. Yet there was pin drop silence.

I will leave you with this silence for a while till I  post the next part.....

Musical Journey of a 90's Kid - Part 3: Mobile Phone - A Blessing

Mobile phones were born in this world. Rather a new world was born with the birth of mobiles. When music lovers went to live concerts, we would call their phone and listen to the live for a while( we still do :) ) . 

Very soon we could listen to FM Radio over phone. But Dharwad had only 1 channel which used to announce in a base voice as " Neevu KeLiutiruvuri FM Kampanaanka Noora Mooru Mega Hertz" ( You are listening to FM 103 MHz ) . This felt like conventional Radio. Bangalore FM on the other hand had many many channels and was much trendier . I made sure I bought a Mobile which had Radio support.Most attractive part of Summer holidays at Bangalore was listening to Radio 24/7. 

Meanwhile, Sitar came home. There used to be a wistle whose sound was the reference to tune strings( Though there are tanpura and tuning apps, many artists still rely on this wistle as it's quick to access) . By now, as we were owners of phones, we recorded sitar string sound itself on the phone and used that as a reference to tune our sitars.

Similarly, the singing problem of picking up a song at the right pitch was solved too as we could record tanpura and Harmonium reference on the Phone. 

Soon bluetooth came by,songs started getting circulated via bluetooth and we could set our favourite song as our ringtone. Phone on silent mode meant you are either in a classroom or in a relationship :) 

Musical Journey of a 90's Kid - Part 2 : The Cassette to CD transition

As the craze for Cassettes continued, my cousin brother Anil Anna got a devotional cassette all the way from Mantralaya. I remember keeping it in a prominent place in the hall to flaunt it with everyone who came home. 

As time passed by, the interest slowly switched towards movie songs.My grandmother who saw my struggle to learn movie songs gifted me a Film hits book from Ankita Book House Basavangudi. This time I chose to flaunt this at school by carrying it in my bag everyday and telling friends that I bought this in BANGALOREEEEEEE :) 

CDs entered the world with more storage space and more advanced features. Browsing centres offered digitalizing all the Cassettes to CDs. But atleast in my circle , I dont remember anybody who made use of this facility fully. However, what excited us about CDs is the fact that, we could rent movie CDs now . Few years ago going to the theatres to just listen to our favourite songs now got converted to watch movies at home and visit the theatre when we really wanted to watch the movie and not just to listen to it's songs. 

Here by saying , Copying from a CD or to a Blank cassette, I donot intend to support any form of piracy. In those innocent years, the resources were so less and the thirst to learn new things and listen to fresh music is just inexplicable .

Meanwhile, harmonium came home from Laxmi Harmonium Works - Davangere. Now singing practice got a little interesting as there was another supporting music to give "Sath"( accompany) to my singing. I remember calling my grandparents' landline and giving them a virtual Harmonium concert after 9PM at night (considering STD used to be cheaper at night) . Grandparents were sweet enough to pretend that they were listening to a harmonium for the first time in life and thanked me for introducing the new instrument :D

To be Continued.......

Musical Journey of a 90's Kid - Part 1: The Cassette Era

Lockdown and work from home has brought out many hidden talents. Though I found out no hidden talent in me, I have been more punctual with my music practice . Thanks to Tabla and Karaoke apps. As a listner , YouTube has never left me unentertained

Recently, while reading something about the boons and banes of  drastic advancement in technology in the past couple of decades , I just thought I should write about my journey ( and probably every 90's kid's journey) with music both as a listner and music student. 

This may not be as crisp and interesting as my other blogs for I am not taking special effort with the choice of words. You may not have had exactly the same experiences as me as a child, but I am sure you will have similar experiences and will feel nostalgic :)

My life as a child began listening the small cassette collection that parents had . Chitramanjari on DD1 was a major factor in introducing us to new songs. I also remember going to a few movies just to listen to the songs( Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam is one such movie) . Gradually as me and my friends started developing our own likes, we started pestering parents to buy cassettes for us. 

Parents came up with a cutoff % and number of cassettes per year. 85% + in mid term exams qualifies for 1 cassette and 90% + in final exams qualifies for another. Now that there was a restriction on the number of cassettes, we started giving more attention to the movie songs and started shortlisting 2 movies where most songs are good. We friends also realised that we can exchange each other's cassettes and thus we used to hold a long discussion on who should buy which cassette. 

Rajendra Radio house in Dharwad was the only place where we would get cassettes. They were kind enough to introduce us to mixed audio cassettes which would have best songs from different movies. In a few days, we also started getting empty Cassettes where we could record from Radio or another cassette or even TV. A blank cassette literally felt more valuable than a blank cheque. Afterall you can record anything from anywhere. 

Meanwhile, unlike today's karaoke era, practicing singing would be a pretty blank experience unless you had a harmonium or tanpura at home. My home had none initially. A friend of mine came up with an idea of using a blank cassette to record Harmonium sound on A side and Tanpura on B side continuously so that we could practice. We thought this was brilliant .But, while recording somebody in the neighborhood coughed loudly and the coughing sound was recorded. Something is better than nothing and thus singing practice continued with intermittent coughs fearless(Covid wasn't there those days so nobody really got scared of coughs) 

To Be Continued......