From the Nostalgic Kozhikodan

Kozhikode - my hometown, where I lived most my life. The Zamorins land has its own charm. Beautiful landscape which varies from valleys to beaches, right mixture of three famous religion and the delicious food that can bring gallons of water in your mouth every time you remember. Kozhikodan’s hospitality is famous, they say if you go to any house in Kozhikode and ask for help they will surely help you and treat you to a tea or a sharbat, true. I can see the raised eyebrows, talking about a time before the cyber era when people used to be more trustworthy.

One of my fond memories of Kozhikodans is their relationship with AIR (All India Radio). There was a time when Kozhikadns used radios as their watches. That was the 90’s when almost all the Kozhikodans had a Radio or two in 1 at home. I remember my mom switching on radio the moment she is up; her daily routine was set according to the programs of AIR.

Every tea shop and barber shops had a Radio playing on high volume. People used to wait for the News in AIR. New topics and debates in AIR was the hot snack over the tea those times. Every Kozhikodans used to know this much of Sanskrit “sampati vartaha suyanta, pravachaka Baldevananda Swami”…

A golden era of Yesudas, Chitra, MG Sreekumar, Rafi, Kishore Kumar, it was then all the Kozhikodans had a singer inside. Every home had a sound track going on and people used to know much about music, singers, lyricist, etc. Now a day we hear a song, we know the name of the singer, that too if we really care.

The second Mecca of football had football commentaries going on AIR and people who used to sing hosanna to the game. Main attraction of AIR was the dramas and the movies they used to play on Sundays. As kids, we used to try tuning into new channels, almost all the time we ended up finding some Arabian music or English songs. Patient tuning and waiting made that music heavenly and still remember that music. Those were the days when you used to think that if you have a radio at home and you listen to almost all the programs, you are an intelligent kid.

Gone are the days when people used to sit together and listen to a single voice with their ears wide open and eyes locked in thoughts with a beautiful smile or an anxious heart. :-)

Jeyaisha John