PoongKaatru Thirumbumaa !

You can appreciate the fact, in those period, communications and sharing were not like it is now!

Now, the life saver in such situations is the internet, which connects the people geographically separated apart, and one can find abundant forums to discuss whatever you think are interesting and can easily associate with the like-minded people.

Over and above the absence of internet culture, the problems were within me also.

I was no doubt an introvert without many friends and further restrictions were to find the IR fanatics like me in distant places like Delhi.

So, whatever the IR-feelings, be it of happy or sad or depressive mood, all these had to be within my heart and mind.

Also, like many IR-fans of previous generation, even the limited releases of contemporary IR films of 90s were not making the impressions in me when compared to the 70s and 80s.

The reasons may be many.

So one natural solution was to look-back and enjoy!

This has been regularly happening in any history including classical music history like Classicism, Impressionism and again Neo-Classicism etc.

So I also indulged in “revivalism” (No doubt, the beauties of 90s are also revived in me a decade later, during 2000s! So never push aside any IR song at any time..!)

It was in this revival period, I started the “re-searching research” kind of listening to old IR songs (which were abundant in my collections).

Though the time availability was very much limited than before, (due to the routine, busy office and family schedules), but the passion was very high..!

You find so many new things- new dimensions, new perceptions etc of IR songs during such revival search.

Imagine, the following situations! (It might have happened to many of you also!)

Locate the “treasure” box in the loft or beneath the cot you sleep !

Get it and open it after dusting….!

You see many indexed cassettes with your glowing eyes ! All containing IR songs!

You take one cassette at random..!

Your mind races to the period of its recording.. ! the happenings around you in that period..!

All the songs in that particular same order starts playing loudly in your mind !

Suddenly get struck-up in a particular song or its BGM or certain phrases…!

Scratch your head and Curse yourself for the sin of forgetting an IR song..!
(it will send a chill in your spine...! Have I got Old.???)

And sudden flash occurs and the forgotten music phrase returns and starts where you left!

Look for another cassette…! Select best possible four or five cassettes ! For listening in your player in the next few days or weeks to come! In installments!

What a feeling it evokes…!

Also, while listening to those old cassettes one natural fear that struck me was that I was slowly loosing the quality of those old recordings..!

So, I found my own way of preserving those songs in new cassettes with meaningful compilations like ragam-wise, singer-wise, mood-wise, specialty-wise etc etc.

You won’t believe me, many years later when I visited Tamil Nadu and saw the IR sections in many music shops like Music world etc, the CDs, Cassettes available there were basically the same kind of compilations as I was doing and many of the song lists were unbelievably matching with my lists.

So it is not just great men think-alike, all IR fans and even many Companies who were thriving on IR were also undergoing the same feelings like me…!

By hindsight I could realize now that I was not the only person who struggled with memories, but I was one among many millions of IR fans…!