This was some years back and we were listening to our prized possession, the dangerous audio tape and just when the song black or white song was playing, there came this weird sound as if an eerie ghost has gotten into Michael Jackson! It was the sound you hear from the exorcist girl just before she barfs all over the room and the priest’s face!
Of course our tape was not haunted! It was more serious than that! The tape which was like a prisoner in Papilon was trying to escape the clutches of the plastic of the cassette and had got entangled into the gear system of the tape player! We had to rush to stop the music and slowly take out the tape without causing any damage to the tape reel! (I use the word reel to reduce tape confusion!)
We were like the proverbial doctor in front of the operation theatre of a Bollywood movie telling to the anxious by standees; “we will try our best, just pray”!!
The worst is when the reel gets so looped that the only way to take it off is to cut a piece and reattach it! Now those days all we had was the paper glue or clear ahdesive tape (tape again!) which was good enough but there will be a layer of tape reel with overlap! That portion was always under risk of break and of course you would have lost a part of the song! The most lucky thing to happen is when that position is between two songs! (Which had never happened to us but we had heard stories of it happening to one distant relative of ours and he was a legend in our circle just for that!)
We were not that lucky though and the tape was off in a song called ‘who is it?’
Even now I can sing that song only with a break in between which can be seen only in our tape!
Yes, that song is much later but getting the tape back inside meant that the tape reel has to be carefully replaced without loss of Orientation which means we need to roll back and forth!
Now after sealing with a glue or paper tape, the final test is to let it play and see which sound comes! Many times the sound will be the same music but backwards! That’s the sounds DJ use many times nowadays in their shows and many love it!
Similar thing happens to when you accidentally press the record button instead of play and that portion gets erased! That’s why the first thing we used to do is to break that plastic seal which makes it impossible to record! Of course the humble paper tape again comes to the rescue there when we do want to record over that cassette! Some even stuff small bits of paper which also does the same thing!
This happened to one of my cassette playing Aqua and by mistake my friend took it for his dance act! Just at that exact moment ‘I’m a barbie girl…silence barbie world’ and the whole crowd hooted like there’s no tomorrow!
Karma is a thing since it was the same friend who had spoiled the tape in the first place!
Another thing we used to be experts in was the rewinding and fast forwarding the tape with the pencil! One of the chief reasons we used to buy only Natraj pencils was because it’s size was perfect to fit the hole of the cassette! Then like little Vishnu we used to turn the chakra! Clockwise or Anti clockwise for rewind and forward!
Buying cassettes were an essential part of watching a movie though! Movies like Dil and Aashiqui had songs which were better than the movie itself and in fact in the case of Aashiqui, the music sales would have taken care of the cost of the movie! After a good movie cassette the next thing is to get a cassette with good combination of movies! It was also the time when music albums were a thing but then all the songs were not that good, those times you go for the mixed tape which you either pay or have a friend who has this double tape system! Then all you need is a single friend buying the whole cassette and you can get the best songs from the album!
Since we had the army vehicle and a very music inclined driver, he would get all the cassettes and apparently they also had some system of sharing the cassettes!
Somehow though the songs we played in the car would be faster and would always miss some section or sound which was a little different in our hope cassette player!
It is how the songs of Gentleman in Telugu sounded better than Tamil since the tempo was faster in Telugu! Though the more sentimental songs were better in Tamil for the same reason!
This was especially true for the song ‘beat it’; the guitar riff sounded so different in the car and in our house! Which is when we were introduced to stereo system and right and left speaker!
The next problem was of copying the tape! We used to play two record together but that would always be bad though with our lowered expectations it was good enough for us!
Then came the rich friend who had two tape player exclusive for recording!
A richer friend later on had the CD player and tape recorder!
The first time we heard the CD we never thought it will take off! It used to get stuck and cost a bomb! Of course there was no need to rewind! Then again you could not fast forward a song! It’s either all or none!
Plus we all had those walk man and they were our constant companion! Then some dudes came with disc man! They were bulky, heavy and if you walk fast then the cds used to skip!
Maybe that’s why Audio cds did not make much of a dent in cassette sales initially till the advent of mp3! Anyone with a computer can take your audio cd and rip the songs and use as he likes! That was gold and certain end to cassette! Now no issue of skip or forward track and it was easier to obtain and share!
I knew it was the final straw for the cassette when I took all my old cassette and turned them into mp3 and my last tape player was given without a second thought!
Still remember how before every trip we made mix tapes then mix mp3 in a usb stick and finally now we have Alexa or Amazon or other music apps.
The other day we were planning for a long drive and all I needed was a full charge in my phone and my Alexa auto will take care of everything else!
Of course new problems! We argue which song to select since there are so many!
Sometimes it’s nice to have only two cassette tapes!
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