Mirchi and Masala

“Necessity is the cause of many inventions, but the best ones are born of desire”- Guglielmo Marconi

We stood there, me, friends and my mind; all looking in awe at the studio with some kind of… supercomputer? No, It was a radio jockey set-up. Oh wait, am I going too fast? Okay, I get the idea – you are puzzled. Stop giving me that annoyed look, I am going to rewind this story specially for you.

I was jumping with joy! I was going to visit a radio station! It was a school trip to Radio Mirchi 95fm. And apparently only a few ‘selected people’ got in (my friends and I had an argument on what was so special that I of all people got chosen). And sad to say, I never actually listened to the radio (12% of the world doesn’t, to be precise), so bucked up and did all the possible research I could on this thing. My parents seemed to be more excited about this trip than I myself was because none of them have actually visited a radio station. This was going to be a radio jockey I am going to meet and a researched another ton about that. So when Monday morning knocked on my door, I was all geared up.  I reached school in a cheery mood, and boarded the bus in a cheery mood and I had a bit of banter with my friends. Soon we reached radio Mirchi.

The moment I saw the building with the vehicles specially assigned to the radio station, I knew that this trip would have a lot of extra masala. When we got to the top floor (as that is where the studio was), we were greeted by a very comfy lobby. I went to the washroom immediately (oh god, let’s just consider that I was doing a ‘hygiene check’). I was there in the first batch, and we had a tour by RJ Jimmy who literally showed us everything. Now back to the beginning of the story. I continued staring at the radio jockey set-up. But, instead of diving into the theoretical stuff, he started of pretty easily. He asked us to tell us anything that grabbed our attention on the way here. Some told about posters, some about vehicles, well, you get the idea. Turns out, whatever we said, can be used as content for the radio jockey (RJ). Next, he told us a story, you are sitting in your room next to a curtain, reading a book, while drinking something when you hear a UFO landing in your balcony, the alien has come to abduct you. But, just in time, your superhero comes and saves you!

For some reason, he asked us peculiar questions like ‘What was the colour of the curtain?’ and “What book were you reading?’. All of us had different answers. So, moral of the story – radio personalizes your experience. We finally saw what the set-up was for. There were a set of songs, jingles and sound effects to play continuously and talk about ‘content’ in the middle. I doubt you would want me to go deeper. Next, he showed us the Kannada radio station and showed us the door to the exit. The next 30 minutes was spent in exploring the office and examining this cool table-tennis table (I like the logic of putting the TT table in an office). The second batch was finally done with the tour, and we headed back, it was an uneventful journey. We reached just in time for dispersal and the day ended. To this, all I can say is… Sakkath Hot Maga!