Back where it all began

Over the years, I have learnt that the luckiest thing in the world is to find a job that you really enjoy. If you are stuck in something you are bored with or hate, it can never do good things for you. I am not sure whether I got bored or hated what I was doing. What I remember is that I soon began looking for other things to do. Thanks to a rather active College career, Programme Executives of All India Radio and Doordarshan (the only two media channels in those days)were known to me. I soon started doing odd jobs for radio and television and began wondering whether media would perhaps be a better option for me than Computers, ably egged on by stalwarts like Mr Melville DeMellow, Ms Rita Mukherjee & the like. 

 

I didn't need to think for too long. Life is so full of surprises! Just when I had settled down to a regular routine comprising of the Computer Agency, All India Radio & Doordarshan (I was a presenter for Youth programmes on television & Yuva Vani on radio) & of course my beloved music lessons, I was compelled to move to Calcutta since my father was again transferred to his home city. 

 In Bengali there is a lovely saying "Gharer chhele gharey phirlo". Thanks to my father's meteoric rise in the commercial world, we received a welcome that was ever so different from the departure in my childhood, that it finally dawned on me that I was indeed blessed. However, having tasted independence pretty early in life, I had no intentions of giving it up. My attempts at convincing the family that I might be able to continue living in Delhi with a friend whose flat could be shared, failed miserably. Besides, the contrast with the family living quarters was so great that I changed my mind & began looking for work in the city of my birth. Much to my utter horror, the only Computer jobs that I found were either on IIIrd generation computers or in the night shift, neither being suitable - the first because I didn't want to regress & the second because I knew my father would veto the suggestion (this was the late 70s remember!) In the meanwhile my music teacher Mrs Dipali Nag had also moved to Calcutta & while she continued to give me lessons in music, she also joined the Sangeet Research Academy as the Head of the Research Department, and she often found me useful things to do there. 

While I had completed the graduation level of the music examinations that she had made me appear for, at her suggestion I had also successfully auditioned for the Yuva Vani music section. A few months later she introduced me to the wonderful Programme Executive of All India Radio, Calcutta, Ms Bulbul Sarkar, to whom I will remain eternally indebted for teaching me how to write scripts which later proved to be a source of income that I could always fall back upon! 

Pretty soon I began regularly presenting a musician's profile every Sunday evening, apart from the other programmes that an English announcer was given an opportunity to conduct. This made good use of my neglected knowledge of Western music. It also introduced me to the Calcutta station of All India Radio - a place that is very dear to my heart. One day when I was recording at the radio station, I met my earlier music teacher Mrs Krishna Chatterjee who was the current rage of Bengali light music. She was so happy to see me that she insisted that I rejoin her class. Soon I found myself being included in her entourage & I often ended up playing the tanpura for her stage shows. By this time I had grown to love music & was well on my way to taking it up really seriously. My father in the meanwhile proved to have become quite a regular host/ sponsor for several organisations. At the same time, my Uncle ran a choir that was patronised by many of the best musicians round town. Not to be left out of good musical experences, I had joined the choir when we came to Calcutta & was seen regularly on television, apart from doing live concerts.