On air, love actually

Our correspondent walks into a radio station in Kolkata and does his bit for mush

You just have to be yourself. Take the mike and show them,8221; my colleague exhorted me over the phone.
Don8217;tworrryIwillmanage, I mumbled in reply. While I wasn8217;t really on my way to sing at Glastonbury, the pep talk was needed. The taxi hurtling past the bright orange lights of Kolkata was taking me to the office of Red FM. In another hour, I would be on air on one of the city8217;s popular late night chat shows. And reason to go radio ga ga I had none.

For one, I don8217;t have a voice that trills in hyper-gaiety to know that a 12-year-old teen oh so loves the 17-year-old hottie in high school. I mumble. I can8217;t keep up chatter for three minutes at a stretch. Not when an entire city is listening. There are uncomfortable silences when I talk to strangers and that has nothing to do with reading Harold Pinter, that great playwright of the eloquent pauses, in college. Second, I have a Bong accent. Third, I can8217;t pronounce the word 8220;warm8221; is it waaarm as in farm or warm as in stylish-r-is-silent-rhyming-with-om waum? But here I am. 8220;Premankur Biswas to meet Jimmy Tangree8221;, I say to a bored receptionist.

He nods in reply and whispers something into the phone. I walk into a huge but disappointingly empty hall. From the snazzy and sharp jingles that I hear on the radio every day, I somehow had imagined a glitzier surrounding. It surely had to be younger, more 8230; red?

8220;The premises are being renovated,8221; booms the familiar voice of Jimmy Tangree, station head, whose trademark opening line 8220;Helllllllo Kolkata8230;8221;, makes even my usually ice-cold sister dissolve in mush and the voice that Kolkata loves to tell all about its loves. 8220;It8217;s nice,8221; I smile weakly.

If he finds my discomfiture amusing, Tangree doesn8217;t show it. 8220;We go on air in five minutes,8221; he winks. Five minutes. 300 seconds. Oh yes, I had time. From my seat, I listen to the familiar Red FM jingle give away to a Kenny G number, the signature tune of the late night show Dil Se, butterflies flitting furiously in the depths of my stomach.

Suddenly, desperate gestures from receptionist. 8220;Go, go,8221; his lips mouth as his fingers point to the glass door leading to the studio. I take off my floaters and walk in. 8220;8230;and today we have a special co-host, Premankur, a feature writer. We will speak to him after this song,8221; says Tangree.

As the strains of Dhoom machale fill the room, Tangree points out a seat beside him. I tiptoe to it. Tangree is amused.nbsp; 8220;You needn8217;t worry about making any noise. Technology has ensured that we can be much more relaxed nowadays,8221; he says. Good start.

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I nod and look around. It8217;s a 12X12 feet room. The wooden walls are painted white and have small perforations all over. Behind me is a banner with the channel logo emblazoned across it. A complex contraption with two monitors and an assortment of switches8212;the console8212;sits in front of me. A mike and a pair of earphones hang precariously8212;will this be the instrument of my undoing? Deep breath and here we go. 8220;Helllllooo Kolkata, a very good evening to you. Am here with your host as a part of an assignment8230;.8221; I drawl Tangree-like and look to him for a sign of approval. Nope. Nothing there. He8217;s busy sorting out messages.

Pinter be damned, the silence in a radio studio just has to be filled. So I8217;m at the mike again, explaining what I8217;m doing here. 8220;Things we have to do for our job, I tell you,8221; I joke. Silence. What did I expect? A studio audience guffawing on cue? Yes, please, that would be kind, I say to the forces that rule the airwaves. Tangree obliges with a smile. Hurrah.

Next, Atif Aslam8217;s Tere Bin the songs are dictated entirely by the playlist flashing on the monitor in front and the queue of ads. Jimmy, as he is called by his adoring fans, is reading out missives of love. He pushes a few lovey-dovey ones towards me.

I trip over the mushy 8220;muaaahs8221; and squelchy 8220;smooches8221; blame it on my Bengali middle-class upbringing. 8220;Relax, you are not invading their privacy. These people want you to read their messages out,8221; reassures Tangree. Umm, I say and try my hand at the monstrous contraption and coax a few songs out of it. The haunting Maula song from Anwar being one 8220;We only play Hindi film songs8221;.

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One-and-a-half hours later, Tangree has more messages for me to read. What the hell? Let8217;s have some fun. People in love had a message. I was the medium. 8220;Mahen wish u a happy anniversary smooch Sarita.8221; 8220;Janu, I luv u pls cum bck to me, Mahesh.8221; There, I said it with a lot of love.