Radio Mango 91.9 - Nattilengum Pattai

Some 40 years back a radio was a luxury. Huge sized radios working on vacuum tube technology occupied a place of pride in the living rooms of the rich. Slowly these got replaced by transistor based radios, small in size and costing less too. Tea shops in even remote villages had a transistor radio. These were the "windows"   to the outer world for the villagers. There was a uniformity in the tea-shop-operation of these radios. They switched on the radio in the morning with the signature music of AIR played on the violin by Yehudi Menuhin and switched it off only when it was shutters at the AIR station. It was during the late seventies or early eighties that Doordarshan TV fever spread all over India like an epidemic. In this onslaught, the poor radio got eclipsed. They acquired the dubious distinction of becoming the first e-waste in India. Radios were to be found only in tea shops and barber shops. For over two decades these poor fellows remained in hibernation hoping for a "sapamoksham" which ultimately happened in the form of FM broadcasting.

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Post retirement, I am confronted with people asking the same question: "what do you do"? when I tell them that I do nothing, the second question: "Future plans"? When I tell them that I seriously plan to do nothing, some look at me in disbelief while some look with sympathy and those with no expression might be telling themselves, "Rascal is lying, something is in the offing"!

How can I tell people that my mornings are busy with Radio Mango 91.9 and its power packed jockey Ms Neetha? For a slow speaker like me, her tides of words are incredible. How can one speak so fast and sensibly too.....with grammar and beauty of language well intact??

Every morning she comes up with something new and relevant too. Sandwiched lavishly with humour, her words provide me with a lot of food for thought. It suffices to say that there were mornings when I forgot to read "The Hindu", something I have been doing with religious sincerity for decades now. She asks people specific questions over the phone. Needless to say that most answers are funny, crazy and far from the right one. We like to hear someone else publicly airing non sense and cutting a foolish figure for oneself. I definitely like that. Yet, two answers on a recent morning show rocked me. Neetha's questions were to students who just passed their higher secondary examination and were seeking admission for higher education.

The question was: "What is electoral college"?

The first boy  soon to join the B Tech course replied: "...er...electoral college....is it connected with elections..."? I was a little relieved to hear this. If the boy had given one of those answers I hear over the morning show, I would have been hugely  concerned about the bridges and buildings this boy would construct in the future.

Now Neetha confronts another boy with the same question:"what is electoral college"?

This boy smart and sure wasted no time in giving the answer:

"Electric college?? It must be related to KSEB (Kerala State Electricity Board)"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My good Heavens! I was frozen. But Neetha could still joke. That's why she is the darling of the ever increasing FM audience.

Now tell me, should I go for any job, post retirement, leaving these wonderful mornings with Neetha, Big B and Muruken??