[fiction] On the Radio

“The night is young and our conversation goes on”, a deep soothing voice spoke on the radio. 

It was 9:30 p.m. and RJ Rohan Raaz was doling out advice for heartaches and taking song requests. Ashwin lay on his bed. The show played on a 2in1 that doubled as a tape recorder and a radio. The antenna was broken. Ashwin tied a metal spoon to the stub of the broken antenna which did the trick and caught the right frequency. 99.4 Rain FM. The show was his companion easing difficult nights as the day’s heaviness settled on his body and mind. RJ Raaz’s voice was balm to his battered teenage soul. 

Ashwin hadn’t spoken to Chirag for 10 days. He yearned for Chirag’s company but jealousy got the better of him. He felt cheated by Chirag who had many friends but Ashwin wanted to be his “best friend”, the only one. He wanted Chirag to spend more time with him and felt envious of anyone Chirag spoke to. Ashwin struggled to understand these feelings himself. In response, he withdrew from Chirag and stopped talking to him. He had a sheet stuck on the inside of his cupboard keeping score of the days he hadn’t spoken to Chirag. Today was day 10.   

“How do I tell I am in love with her?”, a caller asked RJ Raaz.

 “You have just got this one life, my friend, just let her know you are in love with her”, said Raaz. 

“Now tell me, what song can I play for you?”, Raaz asked. 

“Please play ‘when I met a woman, I felt like…’ from ‘1942 A Love Story’”, the caller requested. 

“That’s a great song, my friend, here you go, this lovely melody from ‘1942 A Love Story’ to cheer for your love”, Raaz’s voice trailed as the song emerged. 

Singer Kumar Sanu’s voice listed the similes describing meeting a woman like a blossoming rose, a poet’s dream, a drop of sunshine. The song, released 9 years ago in 1994, filled the room. Ashwin remembered when his brother bought the cassette for this movie’s songs, their first one, for their brand-new tape recorder back in 1998.  

“Should I call RJ Raaz”, a thought occurred in Ashwin’s mind. 

“Maybe Raaz could help me! But the show was about love”, Ashwin thought. 

He wanted relief from the knot in his stomach that consumed him daily. It tightened every day he didn’t meet Chirag. He was worried he would see Chirag with his other friends in the neighborhood and the knot would pull harder. He withdrew at home. Sensing his suffering, his mother made a bowl of Maggi instant noodles earlier today. She looked worried and confused as she watched him put the plate away instead of wolfing it down as usual. He wanted to reach out for the landline phone and let his fingers move through the well-versed numbers to Chirag’s house but it was late. 

He lost track of RJ Raaz speaking but the next song caught up with him. He didn’t pay attention to the lyrics but stayed with the aura the song created in the room. The moonlight flooded through the window and sleep evaded him. The crushed neem he applied on his face to heal the stubborn acne had dried. He did not have the room to himself often, his brother was away and he was grateful to have a private space tonight. He realized that the song playing was a melody from the 1970s – “every passing moment, you stay close to my heart”. Many people requested this Kishore Kumar song on RJ Raaz’s show. Ashwin is used to hearing this song frequently and he hums along, 

“every night brings a procession of your memories, 

I breathe and the air fills with your fragrance, 

bringing sweet messages, 

and my heart beats to your tune 

every passing moment you stay close to my heart”

As the stanza repeats, he sees the wall in the moonlight, adorned with posters of sports champions. His brother bought the monthly Sportstar magazine which carried these posters as the centre page. His brother ripped the posters and taped them to the wall. The wall with peeling paint, stained by the Mumbai monsoon, was held together by these posters. Next to the sports champions was the Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai’s poster purchased from a roadside vendor. Wearing traditional Western Indian dress, her piercing eyes looked at you. The poster was from the movie ‘I have surrendered my heart, my beloved!’ released in 1999.  

His thoughts were jolted by worry. He was worried that the newspaper from a few weeks ago that he held on to would be gone now. 

“Would amma have given away the newspaper pile to the scrap dealer for money?”, an anxious thought gripped him. 

The front cover was a full-page ad for a men’s underwear brand. The image of a toned dusky man wearing a brief and covered in lipstick kisses excited him. He knew he must hold on to it. He had carefully placed it under four newspapers in the pile. He returned the paper to its spot after using it to fire his imagination during stolen private time – a few minutes when his mother went to the neighbor’s house or a quick trip to the grocery store. Now he worried that the newspaper would be gone forever – making its way through recycling – the hot hunk would be paper mâché somewhere. 

He made a note to check for the paper tomorrow. “I should find a secure place for it”, he thought. It was rare to have such an image taking up the entire front page. The neem paste on his face caked and fell off in chunks. Tender leaves would have ground better into a paste but his mother could only reach the mature ones. The matured leaves made the face mask chunky and difficult to apply. He didn’t want to wash his face. He thought the longer it stays, the faster the cursed acne will leave him. None of the acne creams – Zero Marks, Fair and Wonderful, Turmiracle – his mother bought, worried by his despair with acne, worked. His acne-stained face made his eyes look sadder.  

Thoughts of the next morning unsettled him. What if he bumps into Chirag? What if he gets a whiff of Chirag’s hair oil whose fragrance he had learned to seek comfort in? He felt the knot in his stomach tighten. 

He heard Rohan Raaz still healing hearts. Raaz announced the phone number to call into his show. Ashwin knew the number by heart. The sing-song way Raaz announced and the recurring digits made it easy for anyone to remember the number. Ashwin would catch himself humming the digits, like Raaz, while traveling on the bus. 

He wanted to call Raaz. But how could he speak of unnamed things? Things that roll into knots in the stomach and hide in shameful corners of the newspaper—whispers in the agony aunt column or clandestine murders. 

The dried neem flakes were falling all over the pillow. He now wanted to wash his face. He got up from the bed. RJ Raaz announced that he was waiting for calls from his listeners. As he stood up, almost all of the dried neem from his face fell on the floor. His face felt lighter as the mask fell; freeing his face. 

The moonlit room looked beautiful, like strangers breaking into a conversation. Freed from the neem mask, his face shrunk and he let out a sob. As the first streak of tears ran through his bitter face, he heard Rohan Raaz say,

“the night is young and our conversation goes on”.