Arent we all stories, or characters in a story... I think there is a story we watch everyday while we travel, work, eat, drive or play. Imagine you are on a public transport bus and suddenly a lady boards the crowded bus with her laptop bag, managing the crowd and moving to spot a seat. She manages to get a place and hurriedly pops open her laptop to send a few work emails. She gets done with it and spends the remaining 25 minutes in silence and at ease thinking about her struggle from getting up in the morning, getting the kids ready, rushing to get the lunch ready and packing it as she struggles to get her phone charged, gets ready in a jiffy, drops the kids at the school bus stop, runs for a rickshaw to get to the bus stop and manages to catch this bus she boarded just in the nick of time to avoid another late-mark at office. To which her silence is broken with an incoming call from her yaad shehar where she gets lost in the memories of her comfortable small town. Presenting you Neelesh Misra... the great story teller.
The above short story is not written by him or any of the members of his mandli, they do a great job. This is just a typical draft by me just to build the connection to Neelesh Misra's world. I dont know how well I did it, but I must say if you havent heard Neelesh Misra, you must check his Yaadon Ka Idiot Box series. Well who does not like to listen to stories, everyone does. From children to grown-ups like us, we all love to listen to stories and get on an imaginary world and enjoy the same.
Yaadon ka Idiot Box, yes, thats the show which got me hooked back to radio. As a pre-teen and a teen, I always used to listen to FM radio and record songs on my cassette since movie cassettes were way expensive. FM radio had a great stereo quality broadcast and the recording used to be fairly decent. Moving from stereo FM and cassettes to FM and music on mobile phones and then songs downloaded in mp3 formats loaded on mobile phones is the time I bought a car, my first car and Ta-Ding I got a SONY music system installed. This is somewhere in 2011 where we still had a few CD's in use and Pen Drives loaded with music. Bluetooth was still luxury and took a while to pair and connect. After a certain while it used to be boring to hear the same songs on your pen drive and radio where ads kept popping on and the experience was not so great. This is where I got re-introduced to the world of radio.
One day while returning from my office I heard a radio show - Yaadon Ka Idiot Box by Neelesh Misra and for about the next 45 minutes I enjoyed the show thoroughly. My office used to be at Worli and the driving time used to be not less than 1 hour 15 mins to my house in Powai and for such a long drive alone, entertainment was much needed and nothing could be better than this.
Every day there was a new story with new characters which came from all over the country and every story carried the aroma and soul of the place it belonged. The dialogues and the script was very well written and the sound effects were equally amazing and adding to the excellence of the show. People from all over the country loved the show since it took them to a small town where they belonged to or a place which made you feel good. The humbleness of the people in a village or small town, the time standing still out there somewhere touched me and many other like me and the person who made us travel to the Yaad Shehar was Neelesh Misra.
His stories were simple. Had the nostalgia element which hit people hard and made them fall in love with his style of storytelling and his voice. The simplicity and stories from big and small towns from all over india which were relatable to all the listeners which took them to their comfort corners and made them feel emotional and feel good at the same time.
Getting people from 35 cities together at one place and in one city - the yaad shehar just making them travel thru radio as they travel back to their home from work / college is no small task.
If in a story he talks about a character taking a flight and travelling in a place, besides the brief and to the point narration, the sound effects of the airplane and on air announcements made you feel that you are on that same flight and experiencing that story. And as he starts narrating the story with the minute details and anecdotes, you realise this is your story, you've been through this at some point in time and you are all the more intrigued in yaad shehar. The detailed but relatable incidences make you realise that yes this did happen to me once or this did happen to someone very close to me. In the hustle bustle of the day to day life, Neelesh Misra was successful in building an audience and take them to those small lanes and corners where simplicity and life was in abundance.
His stories and simplistic narration is noteworthy, particularly at the time when radio was exploring these new audio shows. This one will always remain special to me.
Thank You Neelesh Misra Ji for creating the Yaad Shehar which requires no ticket to travel to.
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