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Radio Raucous

 I was just reading my old posts, and I had started reminiscing the past. My maternal grandparents had come over. They were listening to songs and stuff on the radio. 


"Listen to this magnificent piece of music!" My grandfather said. "Just listen to the background music. Not the lyrics, not the vocals, just the background music. Just the background. See, see now! Listen to the veena. Do you hear the group of violins? Oh, and the cellos? Oh, and the veena? Oh, the flute!"


He then started singing along with my grandmother. 


"Listen to the keyboard music," my grandfather said, waving his hands through the air like he was a conductor. 


"There is no keyboard in this song," my mom informed him.


Amidst the collaboration of veenas, violins, flutes and the chatter of my grandparents and mom, my sister was relaxing on the sofa, watching videos on the TV.


Then my mom covered her ears and muted the blaring TV. My sister moaned, but silenced herself after a moment. She didn't quite realise certain things when she was watching TV.


The song came to an end. Then a different song started playing, which my grandmother hummed to.


Clearly, my grandfather didn't exactly favor this song like he did for the other song. He told me to reduce the volume.


I fumbled forward to press the minus button, but then the channel changed to a news channel. My grandmother kept saying, "Change it, change it, change it, oh we can't possibly miss that wonderful song!" 


I pressed the plus button and then the song started playing again. My grandfather then started saying, "They were saying something important about the rains! Change the channel!"


My grandmother then tried to stop me from pressing the minus button again, only making me press it twice. And then the kind of annoying sound you'd here when your radio doesn't get a signal came on.


My sister whimpered and covered her ears, and my mom did the same. My grandfather clicked his tongue and reached for the radio. My grandmother was pressing all the buttons in sight and my father stalked into the room, rubbing his eyes after waking from his deep sleep.


I tried to silence my grandparents and I too joined the tangle of arms holding the radio. There was a short argument, until I decided to hand the matter to my brainy engineer-y father.


He grabbed the radio and squinted at it with his tired eyes. He pressed a few buttons and then handed back the radio. My grandfather told me to change the channel to the news channel, and my grandmother was asking for the song. The good news was, I was able to find the channels. There was no bad news, though (for me) but the normal news was that there was no news and no song. Both the channels had started blaring with advertisements.


Comments

  1. Babu ThathaAugust 19, 2024 at 9:48 PM

    Super write up Shriyandhaa. Last punch is wonderful. You are a good observer which makes you to write coherently. Very good 👍
    Babu Thatha.

    ReplyDelete
  2. T.SrinivasanAugust 23, 2024 at 7:03 PM

    Listening to Radio is enjoyable and your write up is more enjoyable .
    From
    Pushpa patti

    ReplyDelete

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