Guess what I found when I was cleaning out one of the drawers? My old Sony walkman! I was rather surprised it was still around – I didn’t remember using it since past 2 years, not since I got my phone with the FM radio. “I wonder why I threw it away” I said to myself as I hunted about for its earphones – it doesn’t have a speakerphone facility. It must have been my lucky day because 10 minutes’ of ferreting about in the drawers yielded what I was looking for. I managed to locate a pair of batteries. I was sure I would hear a static as I turned the knob about for reaching any FM station. After silence of a second or so my ears were flooded with crystal clear music. Delighted, I kept turning the knob tuning in to different frequencies. The result was the same.

Now I was perplexed. If the radio was working fine then I must have relegated it to the dusty drawers because perhaps the cassette player had broken down. I felt rather ancient as I opened the drawer that houses a stack of cassettes of my favorite albums – Hindi songs, Marathi songs, Gazals, instrumentals – a collection I just couldn’t make myself throw away. Picking up the nearest one I popped it in the cassette compartment and flicked the switch to “Tape”. Lo and behold! I could clearly hear the song. I was so happy that I almost jumped in the air and did a little jig as if I had suddenly ran into an old long-forgotten friend - for that’s what this walkman was to me before I bought the FM radio phone. :-)

But it’s been 2 years since then and I have been getting rather bored with the constant (and often senseless) chatter of the RJs. How I long for a stream of songs – without anyone interrupting to give me the time of the day or the latest breaking news or the state of the traffic in the clogged city. And now my old faithful friend has come to my rescue.

I am sure one of these evenings the setting sun is going to find me raiding the drawer squealing with delight as I discover cassettes long foregotten.

Now, this thought is truly music to my ears :-)