Morning Raaga

This flash essay is part of a collaborative, constrained-writing challenge undertaken by some members of the Bangalore Substack Writers Group. This month, we used the prompt, ‘MUSIC’. At the bottom of this snippet, you’ll find links to other essays by fellow writers.

Image Credits (Siddarth RG, Siddarth’s Newsletter)

Sunlight streaming through the windows, gently shining on the two sleeping children. Strains of P.B. Sreenivas singing ‘Binkada Singari, My Donkina Vayyari’ [Haughty well-dressed woman with a graceful body] on Akashvani, jostles with conversational murmurs heard over the chatar-patar of oggarane [seasoning] and ‘cut-cut’ of onions.

‘Edu Akashvani Bengaluru Kendrada Vanijya Vibhaga. Ega Vele Sariyagi 7 gante 16 nimishagalu.’ [This is Akashvani Bengaluru Centre’s commerce department. The time is now correctly 7 o’clock and 16 minutes]. The father walks in, with two stainless cups of milk, places it on the side table and wakes the two children; time for school and the day to begin.

Then there were mornings that were ‘welcomed’ in silence, when the children knew that the Akashvani transmission was interrupted by domestic turbulence…

This was my childhood morning routine for years. Radio being the fifth participant in our nuclear household of four.

Chitramanjari at 8 pm on Wednesdays and Chitrahaar at 8 pm on Fridays were the visual country cousins who would visit every so often. Gradually, the urban cats, MTV’s Most Wanted and Channel V’s [V] Countdown, elbowed the country cousins out. The visual cousins may have competed with each other, but the Radio stayed at the core of our morning routine.

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As I grew up, studying for exams meant that the radio (or a selection of mixed tapes when the stations went beeeeeeeep and went to sleep past midnight) would be playing in the background. Every exam year had an ‘adrenaline’ song- when my brain had saturated and I couldn’t go on, but had last-minute portions to wade through … the song would take me that extra mile.

My plus 2 exams had Savage Garden and Shania Twain on loop. My undergrad exams had ‘The Reason’ by Hoobastank one year, ‘Mujhe Rang De’ from the soundtrack of Takshak another year, ‘Paradise City’ from Guns-n-Roses another year and ‘Que sera sera’ from the soundtrack of Pukaar another year and ‘Kaadal Sadugudu’ from the soundtrack of ‘Alaipayuthey’, yet another year. Of course, these adrenaline songs had to be played mostly on mixed tapes, but the serendipitous playing of one of these tracks on the Radio- sheer joy! Adrenaline on Adrenaline!

Image Credit: songlyricprints.co.uk

One afternoon of ‘study leave’, the Radio was on, Radio City was playing a special afternoon show of Robbie Williams’ songs (once upon a time Radio City used to play *only* English songs). The RJ played 3 seconds of a song and asked the listener to phone in with the name of the song. Good ol’ me dialled in on the house phone, on a lark and trring…trring… it rang! The RJ asked me off the air, what the answer was and I identified it correctly as ‘Let me Entertain You’. He asked me to wait while the previous song played out, so he could put me on air. The previous song gets over and I am on air … The RJ comes on air- We have a listener with an answer, who do we have on air? What is your name? I say my name. RJ says- Let me play the sound clip again. Now what is this song? I calmly say ‘Let me Entertain you’. And RJ says- that is correct! Tell us what do you like about this song. The teenage me high-on-excitement, blurts out- ‘How cute Robbie’s a%&* is in the video…!’ The RJ scrambles to speak over me and drown my inappropriate language- This is a family station, thank you for your enthusiasm and hangs up on me!

A week later, it is exam time and I am in college, ready to enter the examination hall with my Reynolds pens and hall-ticket, the air is thick with grim nervousness, that one can puncture through with the ball point of the pen. My classmate RP comes up to me and conspiratorially whispers in my ear’ Good luck Robbie’ and looks at me with a naughty gleam in his eye. We burst out laughing, the nervousness evaporating like water on a hot dose tava! The exam went well. Good ol’ radio reining in the nerves!

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The Ooru traffic is met not with podcasts or spotify lists, but Radio One, Indigo, City or Fever. My ‘with-it’ niece when driving with me in my car moans ‘Radio?! Seriously!! You must be the last person on this planet who listens to the radio for music! *eye-roll*’

Baby K and Kutty P discovered Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa and Casey’s coast-to-coast on the Radio. They were introduced to Prabhu Deva’s Mukkabala and Humma Humma (Remo’s version) on the steadfast Radio. They discovered the concept of advertisements between songs on the Radio!

To this day, I wake up with a song playing in my head, courtesy years of Akashvani mornings. Cannot think of a day that begins with no mental soundtrack. Today’s was ‘Miraculous’, from Miraculous: Tales of Lady Bug and Cat Noir. The music plays on …

Here are links to other essays by fellow writers:

DhvaniTaranga by Shwetha Harsha , Chutneymix

Music for Mental Health by Shruti Soumya, Same Here

The Singing Neighbour by Rakhi Kurup, Rakhi’s Substack

#18: On Music by Siddhesh Raut, Shana, Ded Shana

How to build a time machine by Amit Charles

Growing Up a Metalhead in Small-Town India by Rajat Gururaj, I came, I saw, I floundered