THE MUSICAL

Phase I - Early days:

The musical journey of my life started on one day of my childhood when the brown colored Philips Grundig Radio with a brown leather/foam cover (with holes near the speaker :-P) and a belt to hang it over the shoulders was playing a song from "The Legend" Rafi sahab which started off as "Abhi Na Jao Chod kar-----" I was hardly 7/8 years older then (if i remember correctly).
No matter how much i understood of the lyrics of this classic but i enjoyed it. Even after 2 days of hearing it i was humming the the same tune and after 25 years still the classic remains "A Classic" and one of my all time favourites.
I grew up listening to AIR, Vividh Bharati and Akashavani (Dharwad) from an Old BPL Sanyo single cassette player presented to me by one of my elder cousin brothers.

The voice of programmes like bhoole bisre geeth, Jaimala etc. were so deeply embedded into my mind and heart that even today they are unforgettable. " Is Gaane ko sun na chahte hai hamare fauji bhai XYZ aur unke sathi ........" Then one beautiful classic would come to life (with a mild churning noise of transmission signal). Kishore, Rafi, Mukesh, Lata, Asha, Manna Dey, Sehgal, Laxmikant Pyarelal, Shankar Jaikishan, O.P. Nayyar, Panchamda, SDB, Anand Bakshi, Gulzar Majrooh Sultanpuri and many more were the names associated with almost any song which was being played..
On the other hand there use to be classics from Akashavani as well. Prominent names used to be P.B.Srinivas, S.Janaki, Dr.Raj, S.P.B, Yesudas, Rajan Nagendra, G.K Venkatesh, Upendra Kumar, Vijaya Bhaskar, R.N. Jayagopal, Chi.Udayshankar and many more.
Classics remained Classics forever.
Simple 4-5 instrument music 3-4 paraghraphs/stanzas with most meaningful lyrics and soothing melodiuos compositions above all the "the voices". Voices which cannot be forgotten, voices which ingress into your mind so deep that even in deepest of your sleeps u can connect to them, voices which will celebrate your happiness and console your sadness.
 "The Memory Remains"

Phase - II - Development:

I definitely owe every bit of this phase to my beloved elder sister. Starting from the classics and transforming the interest to contemporary music..

We used to get 60 minutes and 90 minutes recordable cassets which we used to use to the maximum. My elder sister used to write down the new songs on a paper and we used to get it recorded (although illegal this was the economically viable option) in a cassette shop near our school.

And those songs used to play at home in the same old BPL Sanyo player for hundreds of times. 

Then I got introduced to Kumar Sanu, Udit, Abhijeet, Kavitha Krishna Murthy, Alka yagnik and others..(a special mention Sonu Nigam.)

Then during my high school days my elder sister and I persuaded my dad to upgrade our music system and finally we succeeded in getting another newer version of BPL (again a single cassette one) with a bass, surround, and equaliser..

This system went through an endurance test as this was being used more than some of the vital organs of the body.. (and it passed with distinction).. 

Slowly the musical phase of Bollywood transformed to a new era with A.R.Rahman's Roja.. then came lucky ali, Sonu Nigam Shaan and all new generation talents by along with the clan of ARR.. back back musical blockbusters,. Bombay, Dil see, rangeela and many more.. by this time around 1999/2000 the CDs had started catching up.. which was a revolution in itself.. 

After the year 2000 I moved to Bangalore to persue my studies and was admitted in a hostel which didn't allow any modes of entertainment..

More or less I missed music the most in those two years apart from my friends and family. 

Phase - III - The transformation.

Then I joined engineering and I met this guy called Chethan G.T. A Bangalore boy..who used to scribble names like Metallica, AcDc etc.. (I didn't know any of those names at that time)..

Out of my curiosity I get to know from him that those were music bands of a totally different genre which I never knew of. 

And one day we went to a college fest at PESIT which was yet another turning point in musical part of my life..

Their college band played Neele Neelde ambar par (which was in news as Nitin Bali had remixed it recently) and this friend of my got into an argument that the song was original as against me who was defending my knowledge about Kishore Da's original version. 

At the same time the band played smoke on the water and I was instantly in love with the song.. and this guy knew every song which was played.. 

At the end here was the deal.. I was supposed to get him original Kishore Da's song and other songs of him and he would get me a cd with metal/rock music..since then the interest got hooked onto rock, metal, heavy metal and related genre.. 

Phase - IV - The obsession

During the above phases I got obsessed with certain genres and musicians so much that i would definitely want to mention them here...

1. Kishore Kumar - With all the classics and evergreen melodies and those dard bhare geeth.

2. A.R.Rahman - For all the innovations and some of the best music of the millennium

3. Lucky Ali - For a stand out genre and class with some of th most beautiful songs way different than the mainstream

4. Jagjit Singh - For those classic ghazals and the and regret that I couldn't see him performing LIVE in spite of so many opportunities..

5. Sonu Nigam - For that one Album Deewana and those 100s of melodious songs..

6. Metallica - For exposing me to a all new genre of music and those unforgettable songs and live performances.

7. Last but not the least RAMMSTEIN - The band and genre of music I am so hooked onto that I can't stop liking and loving it every time and again...

To this day I feel all genres of music be it in any language are soulful, soothing extremely powerful. It can influencers your mood, behavior and emotions..

Thanks to all the musicians of the world.. and all the people who introduced the same to my life in different forms and situations...