2006 recognises still

Saurabh Arya- That's the person I met when I was in Aravis (A Haryana based NGO). I was the one and only sound recordist/sound editor of the NGO. I and my anchor friend Saurabh were under Prof. TK Thomas' vision to make Chetna. Seems a bit serious this way when you say that we "produced" a "program" that was "broadcast" on "AIR" Rohtak. We had a fifteen minute slot, so each program was about 14:30 minute long.

But was it so serious of a deal really?! We laughed. We wrote. Our voices echoed more of jokes than reverb free recordings. We wrote some more. We tore off A4 sheets. We improvised each others' Hindi. Especially Thomas Sir's quick recipes of Ka Ke Ki mixup!

We worked. We celebrated small things of our Chetna scenario with Samosa parties. Thomas Sir trained many batches of the marginalized children to speak on the radio; for the radio. We assisted him. We spoke to the "kids". The kids of our age. We connected with them each time Thomas Sir ignited the "radio connection".

We talked sound. We wrote sound. We saw sound. More than just I, as a recordist, recorded them, we all recorded ourselves! We all were audience of our own voices. We improvised. We became better.

Saurabh met me first in such a group of radio students only. At first, I didn't know he had already done a couple of programs before. He had done Gandhiji Ki Laathi in which he voice played The Laathi. Gandhiji Ki Laathi was one of the hottest phrases that we used everyday in our Chetna age.

Chetna hadnt started then. Thomas Sir and I patiently and sometimes impatiently waited for about a year for Chetna to start finally. After a few weeks of having a female voice to anchor the program, Thomas Sir got Saurabh to do the job. That was when Saurabh Arya became the official Saurabh Arya!

I, in my two years at Aravis, painted a lot of tunes, a whole bunch of loops electronically. Chetna's signature tune was initially one of my ultra personal (but still sharable with Prof. Thomas) electronic instrumentals. In no time, we made a signature tune out of it when Vinay Koshy (Prof. TK Thomas' son) sang a couple of instant variations of Chetna vocals over a compact evening!

We built Chetna. Thomas Sir helped us in the beginning to get our grips on something we had never had our ears upon ever before. But then, when we got the flow in us, we became addicted to the process.

Each episode was a topic, a quick discussion (over no-particular-reason tea cups!), a write up, finalising of a script full of criss cross patterns all over, a smooth recording session, a quick but clean editing session, recording of the master CD, printing and cutting of labels, packing of the CD in a bubble pack, pasting of labels, mailing the CD, pinning the courier slip in a file!

Chetna became a routine. Honestly, I never heard Chetna in Haryana, on a real rural radio and in a real broadcast. I could never manage that even though I wanted to.

This process I am talking about, wasn't messy at all. But still we enjoyed to act like we were messed up. For our teacher, Thomas Sir, it wasn't a big deal ever, as he was too experienced always to get messed. It was only us, not messed up ever, just playing like kids in a bath tub!

Chetna was our that life!

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Sometimes I think I have cut out a time. In fact, most of the times I think that, if I think about time at all.. But I met my friend again on 7th June, 09- a Sunday! A Sunday, maybe to connect weeks and months and years.

We talked nonsense again, like we used to do. We talked about Oda and Rossi, the bikers we always bullied in MotoGP 3: Ultimate Racing Technology. We finished our scripts wisely and got on playing videogames. I always took the first turn! :)

In fact, Saurabh always gave me the first turn. Maybe because he was, after all, Gandhiji's Laathi! ;)

We haven't changed. Not at least in the ways we're still filled with the potential to kill time. Not at all about how we think about Chetna, if we think of it, when we think of it. But I know I have changed. I know how I have changed, in my heart.

And its not a bad news in any way as I am still spotted by my people from a couple of years back! ;)

It was a life, a moment, a season, a kind of dream that you always remember. Even though we joked about it all, we were into it! [Yeah! That deeper kind of shittiness]. We marked something way bigger than lines and dates in our CVs.

It was a life. A complete packet. A packet to remember life long!