My eyes sparkle when I spy the instantly recognizable album cover in a pile of old vinyl records displayed on the sidewalk with Lenin Sarani near the Esplanade – the oldest part of British Calcutta where centuries-old Neo-Classical and Neoclassical -The Gothic mansion clings to a still-shabby-gentle colonial grandeur. “this is dark side of the Moon!” I whisper to myself as I gaze greedily at a beam of light spreading into colorful beams against a black background. Finally, the Pink Floyd album I wanted to own.
This is from 2005. About a year ago, I inherited an old record player from an older relative. I got it repaired and used it to play a batch of records I inherited – Bollywood albums and LPs by Bengali stalwarts like Hemant Mukherjee, Manna Dey, Shyamal Mitra and Sandhya Mukhopadhyay. Some were vinyl albums of Rabindrasangeet.
Like the tea of Darjeeling, the sound of vinyl—a warm, crackling wave that engulfs you in mild heat—is a matter of acquired taste. In depth and timeliness, it outperformed digital accuracy—a cold, metallic sheen skimming the CD’s sound surface. Records have a built-in intimacy with them; It’s like listening to live music. Vinyl ceased production in India in the early 1990s; Imports stopped soon thereafter. But vendors at Lenin Sarani and Free School Street keep the supply chain alive by sourcing used records and keeping them clean and scratch-free. Of course, vinyl also has a lot of staying power—in its casing, covered with sticky, thin plastic, it tends to shrink over decades. Every one of them that I have was created before I was born. It became a victim of our headlong rush to adopt the new technology, before it could regale us again with its aural—and aesthetic—superiority.
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On that blessed day in 2005, I casually asked the seller Floyd’s price: “How much?” 500 rupees, he replied. I looked indifferent, and looked around. I chanted John Denver as the sun shone on my shoulders greatest Hits. I struck a tough deal, and returned home with both for Rs 400. I knew I had to come back. Queen’s 1980 Album Play Soon added to the haul.
There were more sidewalk vendors of discarded gold – I remember four on Lenin Sarani and three on Free School Street. The buyers, mostly middle-aged and elderly, were a persuasive crowd. One had come from 100 km away to collect the record of his ailing mother. Another person bought an LP to keep his turntable in working order, as it represented the time he wanted to preserve for the next generation.
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When Outlook Photographer Sandipan Chatterjee made an LP of the album of the Bengali film. sannyasi king Recently on Free School Street, the cover took him back 50 years, when he was a kid – his father’s new, British-made Garrard 3000 turntable played the lead role in their joint family over the holidays. Sanyasi Raja was played frequently. His mother used to play to make him sleep. It took him to his childhood. Says Sandipan, “Every record has personal memories attached to it.
That’s the thing about vinyl—they’re the suppressed storehouse of a vanishing way of living, and therefore a favorite source of nostalgia. Many of us drink it once it’s taken off, captivated by the aura of ripe cool, immortal cover artwork, exquisite sleeve notes – inspired anew by its revival in the West.
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A second-hand record store tells you about the music a city once listened to. Accordingly, from the 50s to the 80s, Calcutta produced Bengali and Hindi film music, individual film albums by playback singers, and much western and Hindustani classical music, opera and western pop and rock in all its astounding colors. Heard. Pop mainstays such as ABBA, Boney M, Bee Gees, Neil Diamond, Jim Reeves, Connie Francis and Dean Martin are found in abundance, priced between Rs 300 and Rs 700. The Immortal Art Albums That Stick Up Like a Pyramid—Cream disraeli gears and yardbirds small gameof, say, or Jefferson Airplane After Bathing in Baxterand the Beatles Sergeant Pepper, are still rare.
“Pop, country songs and western classical music are available in abundance in Calcutta. Rock, jazz and blues are rare,” says Sheikh Danish, who plays Record Prince on Free School Street, before heading to New Market. From Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones and Dior Straits to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, they are considered ‘rare’ for Rs 1,500-4,000. International pop hits (often ‘covers’ of the year’s hits), Latin music and orchestral music are also available, often featuring attractive erotic models on their covers.
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Bengali and Hindi records are cheap, unless it is a film with music by RD Burman or music by Jagjit Singh. Arth. “You didn’t get burning train for cheap. People love listening to it on a record player,” says Danish. Their relatively high prices are justified, says Tarakeswara Rao, owner of another Free School Street shop. “Keeping them in good condition requires years of care. Buyers are few. We’re preserving something they don’t make anymore. The value is sentimental. In short, a nursery for nostalgia.
A couple stops as we speak. “Look, Riju, a gramophone! You won’t see it again!” the man tells his son, who is five or six. The boy, without interest, drags his father away. It’s a safe bet that 1974’s Joan The beige album that I bought last week for Rs 500 will continue to sing diamonds and rust even when Riju is my age. Maybe by then he will see the point of nurturing these past relics – maybe only For good music, or as a tribute to the missing generations, who were on the same streets, under the same skies.
(It appeared in the print edition as “Off Diamonds and Rust”)
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