The Radio Review Series : Part 3
Lage Raho Munnabhai !You might be wondering why am I talking about a movie here on the Radio Review page ! This movie seems to brought to the fore Radio like no other movie...I got a mail a couple of days back which was a review of this movie . The author had reproduced the following lines from this movie which I feel should essentially be reproduced in my blog :
"Shehar ki is daud main daud kar karna kya hai
Agar dosto yahi jina hai to phir marna kya hai ?
Paheli barish mai train late hone ki phikra hai,
Bhul gaye bhigate hua tahelna kaya hai ?
Serial ke kirdaro ka sara hal hai malum ,
Par ma ka hal puchhane ki phursat kahan hai ?
Ab ret pe nange pav tahalte kyon nahi,
108 hai channel par dil bahalte kyon nahi ?
Internet par duniya se to touch me hai,
Lekin padosh me kaun raheta hai jante tak nahi ?
Mobile, landline sab ki bharmar hai ,
Lekin jigari dost tak pahoche ase tar kaha hai ?
Kab dubate hua suraj ko dekha tha yad hai, ?
Kab jana tha sam ka gujarana kaya hai, ?
To dosto sahar ki es daud me dod kar karna kaya hai,
Agar yahi jina hai to phir marna kya hai"
Yeah so true...Aint it ?? :)
The Radio Review Series : Part 2
Kittu Maama , Suzy Maami"Is that a title for a Radio Show ?", You ask...Well, Yes it is and this program is as ridiculous as the title...
This program is aired everyday between 8 AM and 9 AM on Suryan FM (93.5 is the frequency) except on Sundays. The baseline being Kittu Maama is a Tam bram married to Suzy Maami who is of course a Christian....and (Yeah , these are two imaginary characters) the talks, fights, quarrels they keep having for one hour.
There are two guys who give the voice for Kittu Maama....who speaks typical Tam Bram language....one of these guys is really good, and that is one good thing about this programme. Suzy maami is also orated by two ladies....Suzy is supposed to speak Tamil like an Anglo who has just come to Tamil Nadu or something....again , only one of them do a good job of this. Apart from this the good thing about the programme is the information they give during their dialogues about the events happening in the city on that day....this varies from bandhs to job fairs to discount sales,but then, these updates are not regular and happen so suddenly during the show that they go unnoticed.
But that unfortunately ,are the only good words I have for this show. This show is really bad when it comes to the content. It has these two people yapping away at each other for one whole hour. For instance , Kittu mama is a homemaker and Suzy is the one who is working....the taunting of Kittu by Suzy especially about earning money becomes a little too much when carried over the whole day. The makers of the show tried innovation - They came up "One pazhamozhi a day"....wherein they got Kittu to talk about one everyday.....Everyday the episode features Suzy making fun of this and it came to a stage where the essence of this is completely lost. Also , this radio channel seems to be politically oriented. They use these two characters shamelessly to talk about the greatness of the politician in reference. And to listen to that in the morning is a big bore !! And this show does not do the Peak hour traffic updates for that hour which is done by almost all other programmes hosted at the same time on other FMs.
Songs aren’t too great to talk about. Once in a while , the songs are good. Most of the times , the songs played are film songs which are popular in urban areas - certainly not pleasing music for the ears.
Given a choice , this would not be the program I would tune into in the mornings !
The Radio Review Series : Part 1
M-Time / Dine with MusicThis is the English Music show that comes every evening between 7 and 9 on Rainbow FM. Usually there is one hour of a callin show - where users can call in and request for songs and the next one hour called Dine with Music is just songs.
This used to be the only show playing English songs in Madras till the advent of the private FM Stations. This station had different RJs every day ...ofcourse each one leading the show in his/her own way , playing user's requests.....
Saturdays is when the first hour of the show is sponsored . Its called the Odyssey Hour or something - where a recorded voice is played with a combination of some really nice songs. Generally, the hour also consists of an interview with a personality ; Sometimes there a couple of callers who tell us why they liked this show... This is a recorded show...and if you are a keen radio listener like me , you'd probably make out that its recorded. I personally am against recorded shows on radio involving live callers....it kinda spoils the whole effect of the show !
On the Music : The music being played generally depends on the RJ who is playing it. There is an RJ who plays more of Gospel Music than songs...Then there is another RJ who always plays peppy kinda music....and ofcourse there are users who call in and request for songs which are generally obliged to by these RJs ...and these requests I think depend on the kind of music thats "in" at that time.
On the RJs : I must confess....I really admire a few RJs for the kind of English they use and the voice they have....but then , they are ofcourse very very few on this Radio station. And I think its a pleasant surprise to listen to such good English on Prasar Bharti.. (no offence meant , but I have heard some of their programmes in tamil and they are really miserable when it comes to the RJs ). Some RJs are really pathetic - the English they speaks sounds like Tamil , some put on a false accent ( rather try to ) and some even have bad voices and yet some try to leave their own mark by doing the show a little differently from the rest
On the Callers : There are callers of varied age groups...School children to retired gentlemen..... There are a set of Regular callers which I think makes this show really unique for the sheer persistence of these callers to call in to the program everyday.
I think it would be good if they played some club music at times . Also , I rarely hear them play any remixes. They used to play remixes a couple of months back...Iam not sure why this has stopped. I have rarely heard anyone play Cher , La Bouche , Whigfield and the likes.....and I wonder why ! The music played everyday is very repititive. I mean , you'd probably hear the same song atleast 5 times during the week......which could be boring to a few. On a couple of days , I have even heard them play retro bigtime.....Songs like "Bachelor Boy" - Ah ! Pure Nostalgia ! The news in Tamil and the financial and sports updates that happen in the middle of the show kind of spoil the fun....I think they can reduce it to any one of these in these two hours....It would do a lot good to the show. They also need to change the hold music they play when you call them . Now that music is something you gotta hear to believe how rotten it could get !
All-in-all , A show you can actually listen to without getting bored whichever age group you belong to.
The Radio Review Series : Introduction
I have read a lot of reviews.....about movies , songs , actors , actresses , directors , music directors, make up , plays and even TV serials. I have very rarely come across reviews on radio shows.
Being a Radio Buff myself, I thought of doing a Radio Review Series on my blog. I have seen radios blare at the local tea shop where I go for my tea breaks , at the Laundry Shop ( Iron man as the kids around my home call him ) , Infact , in almost all shops downtown. I get to to listen to the Radio when I’m driving to and back from work. It makes it all the more interesting to blog on such a subject being based out of Chennai given the fact that Chennai has 7 Radio Channels.... I know I probably can’t do a great job of reviewing of all these channels....But I’m gonna try my level best to do justice writing about the shows I have tuned into on these channels.
The FM Channels whose programs Iam gonna try and blog about include - ( The numbers in bracket indicate the frequency at which you can tune into these channels )
- Suryan FM - 93.5
- Radio Mirchi - 98.3
- Radio City - 105.8
- FM Gold or Akashvani - 105.0
- Rainbow FM or Prasar Bharti - 107.1
- Hello FM - 106.4
- Big FM - 92.7
Watch this space for more to come !
The Disclaimer Blog
Ok , so someone said that I need to add a disclaimer to my blog before I start doing any kind of critic(al) work on my blog....So , here goes :
" This blog represents my views alone , The opinions expressed in this blog does not represent the views of anyone associated , related or working with me...The company I work for has nothing to do with this blog and my friends and foes are not responsible for any of my lines here , unless stated explicitly "
I hope I managed to convey the message I was trying to. So , Happy Blogging to me !
Chennai Traffic - Is it slowly going the Blore way ?
No , I did not mean people travelling towards bangalore. Iam talking about the traffic that is slowly increasing here everyday.....Reminds me of my days in Bangalore :(
I live close to Sutherland in Velachery and my office is in Alwarpet.....The standard route that I take is Home -Vijayanagar terminus -100 feet road - Concorde Motors Junction -Anna University - Kottur- Alwarpet.
Generally , there is a lot of traffic on the other side of the road in the morning ( with the IT corridor , this road is usually hounded by buses of all shapes , sizes , colors and companies ). But, for the past few days I see an increase in the amount of traffic on this side of the road also.
Two particular areas I want to talk about which are always crowded and jammed with traffic :
- The Vijayanagar Checkpost Stretch : There are a couple of places here where vehicles can take a turn to go in adjoining lanes....there is no median on the road....So you can imagine the way people would drive during rush hour....About 2-3 days back , there was a bus which was coming from the opposite direction - it was taking a right turn into a road...A bus from this side tired overtaking this bus ...and it created chaos...Traffic was stuck for about 15 minutes !!
- Then there is the Vijayanagar Junction : Oh , Do I need to mention ? Its like a circle with roads splitting in all directions and you have vehicles lined up for 2-3 kms at times.....I pity the pedestrians who try to cross these roads....
And I thought its probably only these roads that have problems and that too at times..... Nowadays , in chennai you have about 7 radio stations - all of them have traffic updates at regular intervals. I suggest that you tune into these stations - to get a hang of the amount of traffic jams happening in the city even on broad roads during non-peak hours....Gosh !
Oh , I almost forgot to mention what got me to blog on this ! This morning on Kottur Bridge ( The overbridge just after Anna University ) there was apparently (Coz I did not see it...just heard it from the people there ) a dead body. Some good soul called the Fire Engines (!!??) and a couple of them landed up with the police...... So the overbridge gets jammed.....and that jams the roads adjoining the bridge !! And I ended up taking 50 minutes to cross that stretch ( Anna University to Kottur Signal ).
Whoops ! I just hope this place does not become another Bangalore in terms of traffic !
Back !!
Ok , So Iam blogging after a year and half...really not sure what to start with.
But then atleast I started....So watch this space for more to come !
