A memorable recording

It is beyond the imagination of today's generation as to what it means to listen to a cassette or to record something onto a cassette. The first thing they would wonder is the cassette itself. Today when at the touch of a button, they can listen to the music of their choice, it's unfathomable for them to even understand the functioning of this so-called old-fashioned music system.

But for us born in our 70's and early 80's, this way of listening to music was the only way and we were very satisfied with this cumbersome sole option available to us. The joy that we derived in putting the square thing with the 2 reels on either side, into the cassette player was out of the moon. Pressing the ON/OFF, REWIND/FORWARD, RECORD, PLAY/PAUSE buttons gave us super sensuous pleasure. If there was a family of 2,3 children, usually the eldest got this golden chance. The younger ones would wait for an opportunity to get hold of these buttons and try them out at their will and fancy avoiding the eyes of their elders.

In my childhood, I remember my father playing some old cassettes in which our baby voices and poem recitals etc. were recorded. We would play those clips again and again and declare ourselves as to how cute we sounded. I even remember us as a family sitting down and recording our voices and gibberish talks and then playing the recording to hear how we sounded. Those were some fun old days. Today I have the baby sounds of my children in hard drive.

The first music band I heard was Boney M, with songs like "By the rivers of Babylon..." etc. I would play the band again and again and learnt the lyrics by heart. To sing along with the band seemed like a piece of cake and when someone would pause the cassette, our true abilities were scattered for everyone to witness.

The only discomfort with the cassette was when its strings would get stuck in the player or when they would come out loose in which case my dad would use a pencil to put the reel back in the ring and then try to fix it to be played again. I remember fixing these reels many times and as far as my memory goes, most of the time my trials were a failure, and then I would give up and declare that this cassette was too old and needed to be thrown away only to be later fixed by my dad.

I brought some of the cassettes along with me after my marriage and still have them as a memory item. There are hardly any shops that sell cassette players and also when one has dozens of music available in super modern apps like Spotify, these old-age cassettes remain hidden in our cupboards waiting for someone to pick them up even if to clear the dust.

A cassette is a storehouse of our memories which even if not played out holds a significant place in our hearts.