An ode to the magical tape recorder

BACK in 1994, my father brought home something that changed our world — a tape recorder. He had been saving money for years to buy it. Its rectangular black body, beautifully designed, had an amazing sheen. It had seven or eight square-shaped buttons — embedded deep like teeth. Father told us that if we pressed two buttons together, we could start recording. And that’s how our novel ride began.

One day, my mother gave me Rs 23, and I ran to a street vendor to buy a blank cassette. There were usually two available: a 60-minute tape for Rs 23 and a 90-minute one for Rs 30. I brought home the tape, pressed the eject button and the cassette door opened. I placed the cassette inside and pressed the record button. What happened next was magical — my parents, brother and I heard our own voices for the first time. We laughed and smiled like never before.

Father had bought the recorder to listen to Quranic recitations and Friday sermons. One of his friends from Pakistan had sent him Quranic recordings. Mother, who loved Hindi songs, would send me to cassette shops to get her favourite numbers recorded. There were two famous vendors in Qadian: one was the Bombay Cool Shop, run by a Sikh woman and her husband (both passed away a few years ago). The other vendor was a wheelchair-borne man. He is still in that shop, now using modern recording systems.

I gave him Rs 5 and mom’s list of songs. He charged Rs 2.50 for one side of a cassette and Rs 5 for both. It was not an easy job. He had to search for the movies, find the songs and record them one by one. It usually took more than two hours to record one cassette.

Gradually, my brother and I grew fond of these songs. We listened to them for hours. That tape recorder didn’t just play sound — it recorded our voices, our feelings and the music of that time. We used it for almost 10 years. One day, it stopped working. We tried to fix it, but in vain. We kept it for some time like a photo album, and later it was gone from our home — but never from our hearts.

New gadgets came and replaced our tape recorder. Today’s children may have thousands of songs in their smartphones, but they don’t know the joy of waiting, recording, turning cassettes with a pencil by putting it in the holes and playing. They may have better technology, but not richer memories.

The tape recorder gave us immense happiness, but we never forgot to play outdoor games such as Meeru Dabba, Gilli-Danda, Pitthu Garam, Bandar Kila and Baraf-Pani. Children now prefer to stay inside. Ironically, state-of-the-art gadgets have made life more complicated and stressful.