WAY TO UPGRADE OLD MUSIC SYSTEMS

 · If nostalgic sentiments attached

The sound processor - Sonodyne Uranus amp

I found myself falling through my memories when I stumbled across this today! It was once-upon-a-time a high-end sound processor – alias, my Sonodyne Uranus amplifier with matching bass reflex speakers which I had got it decades ago at a time when digital technology just entered into the acoustic space replacing the analogue system. This had indeed induced nostalgia quickly and easily. 

       

During that era, premium home stereo systems which ruled the Indian market were now the defunct Akai-Bush, Sonodyne Uranus, Philips Monster and Norge among others. Real high-end products such as the legendary Bose 901 Series Home Theatre System, Denon, Onkyo, Adcom, Marantz, Quad, Yahmaha, Tannoy, Gale, Luxman etc were available too, but only in the grey market with a prohibitive price tag or for those lucky ones who had a US or foreign-returned relatives.

I can recall a couple of my friends in Shillong who had a penchant for such great stereo systems – Jonathan (Joe) Chittaranjan and Michael Pariat. It was my association with them where I got to see, listen, feel and analyse some of the well-known sound systems of the world.

Laptop connected to the Sonodyne Uranus amplifier

At Joe’s place where we used to spend hours together listening to music, dubbing and creating mix-tape mixer cassettes for various occasions, will always remember his high-end Technics and Sony stereo systems. Although Sony had just entered the market with an Indian partner – ‘Orson’ (later known as ‘Sony Orson’) but, the system which I had seen at Joe’s place was a very high-end one and not available at any of its retail outlets throughout the country. Yes, I still remember his matching Technics stroboscope belt-driven turntable too which had a real stylish hydraulic automatic self- return tone arm and pick-up cartridge!

Michael lived at a picturesque place surrounded by lots of pine trees. It was equally a treat visiting him taking the steep ups and downs drive-way contours towards his house. A pleasing personality, Michael was considered a ‘music bank’ during the university days – give him a list of your favourite songs and he would record them for you in a cassette with utmost precision. He would take note of the average cassette players owned by most of us and accordingly would adjust the sound level, enhance the high frequency, bass response, midrange and perfect balance for equal output from both speakers. His recorded cassettes always had the clarity like a compact disc since the annoying Hsss… sound was eliminated and this was his signature!

It was at Michael's place where I got to see for the first time the legendary Bose 901 Series Home Theatre System. This killer sound machine with mind-blowing sound effects absolutely carried me off. Perhaps, Michael was one of the few people in the country to own such a system at that time – It was just like owning a Lamborghini or a Ferrari car! The Bose 901 speaker, the one that was originally introduced in 1968, is still in production today.

Whenever after returning home from these two friend’s place, I

Front panel open of the amplifier

used to rigorously clean the head of my player with an after shave lotion and adjust the alignment with a small star-head screwdriver to enhance treble effect as the sound always seemed to be muffled in my ears! Inspired, I had also created my own version of home theatre system by fixing a 10 inch speaker in a tea chest and multiple old radio speakers of all sizes in earthen pots with cross-over network circuits! Ha ha ha, those were the crazy good-old-days. And trust me, though I have now physically grown old but, I am still the same and crazy like before as far as acoustics and home sound systems are concerned.

Both Joe and Michael were very lucky to have a decision maker in the family who were very interested in high-end music systems. Joe’s dad, Late H.S. Chittaranjan, ex-DGP of Assam and Meghalaya was extremely fond of good music and unique gizmos. Infact, uncle Chittaranjan was very young at heart. Michael, who comes from a very refined background, had a family member settled in the US who brought such goodies whenever he visited India.

Laptop connected to the Sonodyne Uranus amplifier

Coming back to my amplifier, I was wondering what to do with it now? With the digital boom, electronic junk has become very common in every household, taking up valuable space and I was seriously considering to get rid of this too.  Had just cleaned the system with a damp cloth then connected the speaker cables and mains. Oh-my-god! the LED function key came to life and a mild humming sound from the speakers could be heard. Next, I connected it to my laptop using a 3.5 mm stereo jack and the other end with flower jack to the Auxiliary input of the amplifier. Played a track and guess what? The mere 32 watt RMS (Root Mean Square) device sounded so good and refined in this digital age comparable or even better than many systems currently available in the market. Push opened the front panel of the amplifier to adjust the bass, treble, balance, loudness and filter/scratch controls that sounded even pleasing.

The F&D USB player with remote control

Looking at it for a while I was wondering one of the downsides of this amplifier – it does not have a remote control. After doing a market and internet research, I came across a solution. A USB player is available in the stores which can be integrated with the amplifier through an Aux cable. It is a small devise which has provisions for memory cards as well as pen drives, play audio/video files, FM radio and a remote control that enables the entire function of the system. The USB player commonly available has only a pen drive provision which cost less than Rs. 400/- while the one which is smaller and sleeker has memory card and pen drive slots is close to Rs. 900/-. It comes in F&D, an imported brand.

Interestingly, technology has developed so much that now bluetooth converters too have come up which can be directly connected to such amplifiers. Once it is paired with cellphones  or other bluetooth enabled devices,  it can remotely play music with the ability of adjusting volume, equalising and shuffling of tracks. It is a small device and is available of Belkin brand, a well known Chinese company. The cost of this bluetooth converter is around Rs. 2,300/-.     

So if anyone of you are having a good old system and have nostalgic sentiments attached to it, think twice before you consider to get rid of it. You can still enjoy the bass and mids of Santana’s Black Magic Woman to high notes in Adele’s Skyfall or Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven including thud of bass in Bollywood songs without investing much for a brand new music system in this festive season.

                                                                                                                                          

Bangkok's Central World shopping centre

A Hot Summer Night Dream

The Scotland of the East!

Bird's view of Shillong city

It must have been sometime during the monsoons and before our house at Shillong was finally sold off. The compound and the surroundings were full of greenery. The hedges from the gate towards the side of my room that ran downwards till a senior advocate’s house had over grown.

While on the other side of the gate that marked the boundary between my friend, Runtu’s and our house, the hedge trees were all

Dad's sketch of the pear tree

covered with thick squash plant creepers. The tendrils of this plant had spread every nook and corner until it reached the high branches of a tall pear tree which grew in the backyards of Runtu’s house with a part of its branches spread towards the entrance of our compound and the colony road. A little away stood a magnificent eucalyptus tree at Bijni complex with the backdrop of pine trees dotting the surrounding Shillong valley thus, adding beauty to the Scotland of the East.

Dad and mom

There was the sound of the chirping birds flying to and fro while a group of urchins armed with catapult were looking for game. And with their vibration coupled with an occasional gale, ripe pears and overweight squash fell to the ground with a thud at different intervals. A nondescript person was busy struggling to clear the creepers from the hedges and in the process fine yellow and red cables emerged – it may be the cables of my self-made intercom telephone in the neighbourhood and I was about to beg him not to clip off my Local Area Network!!

The previous night had a heavy rainfall as a result the morning overcast sky suddenly paved the way to a bright sunshine. The day looked very fresh and pleasing. From a distance an unforgettable song of the famous duet – Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood’s - Straw-Berries Cherries and an Angel’s Kiss... could be faintly heard. Back home a similar song was belting out from mom’s record player.

The front door of my room (earlier my sister’s) was wide open and

she was basking in the sun. The bedroom was clearly visible with stacks of neatly kept dad’s books including the part of the door leading to the dining hall where mom used to have her endless musical soirée.

May be I was also in the compound and we could see mom and my elder brother in the bedroom. Dad wore his brown self design pullover and walked past us through the compound towards the road to somewhere at Laitumkhrah. Probably he was also carrying a shoulder bag and asked us and mom to accompany him. Within minutes mom and my sister were together, with dad walking a couple of steps ahead. My sister yelled at me to hurry up but somehow started walking slowly since I got focused to some kind of a hand-held device. My elder brother did not come with us but stayed back at home.

For a while I was engrossed with the device and then looked straight to our colony’s deserted road. I could not see anybody and so I raced up to catch up with my parents and sister.

Suddenly I found myself in the premises of St. Edmunds’ College. Immediately I thought of visiting Down Shop – a popular tea shop

St. Edmund's College

to hang around during my college days located just outside the campus. Here too the bushes had over grown and the terrain had become hostile with treacherous hills and deep gorges on all sides. The wonderful drive-way to the campus from Jowai Road side – i.e. the stretch of road towards Fire Brigade – Fruit Garden – Dhankheti was totally missing!

Late Brother Shannon 

Standing there and wondering I met a padre. He was an Irish, six feet tall sporting a white gown holding a chain tied to his faithful German Shepherd. He told me that St. Edmunds’ College has now become a deemed university. I assured him that I would be visiting him before I returned to New Delhi. I guess he must have been Brother Shannon – the ex-principal of the college. I met another familiar looking tribal friend who claimed to be working here but again, he was at Dibrugarh!!?? I regained my composure and started putting questions to him – staccato, one after another.

It was getting dark with the last rays of sun in the western horizon and gradually the street lights came to life. It was making me panicky for not being able to trace my parents and sister. I was about to call my sister from my cell phone but something happened.


Now I had a medium size golden number lock in my hand and was entering her cell phone number in it. With every digit I pressed into the metal lock a tiny bright amber colour light flickered in it. By this time I was at Beat House heading towards Laitumkhrah Police Point and walking in the footpath opposite Presbyterian Church.

I had almost reached to the climax of catching up with my dad, mom and sister until I was jerked by a loud alarm from my cell phone. I woke up, rubbed my eyes for a while, then tried to recollect the entire episode of this summer dream and again slept back hoping to continue – but it was all in vain! Later I realised today, 05 May is my father’s birth anniversary.

Western Influence in an Indian melody of the 1970s

THE BLIND BOY STORY

Effective Communication

Every night, before a game, Sachin Tendulkar used to dream his innings. He  sees himself walking out to the pitch, taking guard, facing the ball and scoring runs. He sees the strokes he makes, hears the sound of the ball striking the bat, watches the ball speeding to the boundary.

He sees this vision time and again, so that when the time comes and he actually walks out to the middle, he has already done this multiple times, knows what will happen and is supremely confident.

This is the key to his success and the key to business success anywhere: the ability to form a clear, compelling vision of the future, so see the goal as already achieved. It is the view from the top of the mountain, where the path to success is clearly laid out, the route to overcoming obstacles free of any doubt.

If we are to achieve exponential success, if we are to drive the organisation we represent to new levels, each of us needs to see our own future with the same clarity and confidence so that we can step out of our comfort zones and create an enterprise that we can be proud to be a part of.

Here is a wonderful story by a renowned faculty of a business school. A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help." There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?" *

The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.”

What he had written was: "Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it."

Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing? Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective? 

This is what we need to do as communication advisers - compose our clients' messages in such a way that the publications feel compelled to print them and the public want to read them.

Our vision and our expertise will enable our 

success - let us make the future happen!

Beauty of Spring Season

The Marvelous Tree

The tree in  January               The same tree in April

       

Hey, spring is back! It is a time of the year where flowers of various colours dance in the vernal wind and the green world returns after a long cold weather as mother earth is at its best. The cuckoo sings its melody, the busy-bee hums around while the gorgeous butterflies makes its appearance too.

The spring season in India usually commences around March every year when the sun starts warming up the cold weather. Days become longer with every passing day while nights become shorter.

Here, at Delhi from my dining room window, I have been noticing a tall tree over the past few months.  Although I do not know its name, but had grabbed few still images at various stages of this marvelous tree. 

The photographs can be viewed below.

The naked tree with only branches: January 2013

The same tree with signs of leaves blooming: Last week of February 2013

First week of March 2013

Last week of March 2013

First week of April 2013

14 April 2013

14 April 2013

15 April 2013, the same tree becomes so colourful

16 April 2013

19 April 2013

20 April 2013

21 April 2013

21 April 2013

The same tree almost in full bloom: 21 April 2013

Appraisals to Nites of Indulgence!

Top ten office party do nots

"Appraisals are where you get together with your team leader or manager and agree what an outstanding member of the team you are, how much your contribution has been valued, what massive potential you have and, in recognition of this, would you mind having your salary halved?"

This observation by British comedian Guy Browning may strike a chord with each of us.

The annual appraisal process is underway in several organisations. Incidentally, it is also a time of the year when emotions rules high among the workforce thus, resulting in putting their papers and walk out for better alternatives.

The unique secrecy of one's appraisal from colleagues gives an impression that each person has got a better deal! So whatever your ratings are or if you are yet to be appraised then just keep your fingers crossed.

And once all such exercise are over put on your dancing shoes and get ready to groove to the rhythm of music with the accompanying psychedelic and lazer display. From rock to hip-hop, from reggae to bhangra - you ask for it and the DJ will do his best to entertain you. Pick up a glass of chilled beer or a goblet of mocktail and say - Cheers!

Parties are a morale-booster for the workforce. These are opportunities to have face time with higher-ups. These are also avenues to build goodwill and to network within colleagues.

Parties are a way of recognising that there really is a community within the organisation - that it is more than just people who sit next to each other and get the company's work out of the door. They are the way of strengthening ties.

Many employers worldwide consider it to be a faux pas when employees skip the company party. Experts say that it is important to show up since it transmits a positive image that an individual is a part of a group which matters to him/her.

However, experts also caution that getting too loose-tongued at a company party can hurt others as well as you. They say free flow of alcohol is often the culprit causing employees to drink and drive or sexually harass colleagues. If you are unable to hold your drinks it can make you say or act in an offencive manner that eventually lands you in trouble.

Have a great party ahead but at the same time be on your guard. Now, if you intend to escape the company party or even indulge in drinking then just think twice!

Top 10 Office Party Do Nots

Do not drink too much. Even if you can handle your alcohol, limit yourself to one drink.

Do not treat the office party as a singles bar. an office party gives you the chance to see another side of your co-worker.

Do not flirt or act in a sexually provocative manner.

Do not wear suggestive clothing. It is okay to wear more of festive clothing (sparkles and sequins), but if you would not wear it to the office, you should not wear it to the office party.

Do not let your guard down. Relax at office parties, but do not reveal things about yourself that you might not want your co-worker to know.

Do not use foul language. Although you may feel comfortable at the office party, be sure to keep bad language in check. It can make you look unprofessional.

Do not bring uninvited guests. Do not assume it is okay to bring your significant other or someone else without asking first.

Do not underestimate your guest's behaviour. Be sure to invite someone who will behave appropriately.

Source: Dawn Rosenberg Mckay, from www.about.com's Guide to Career Planning

Finally, I am not trying to police morals! I was provoked to write this after reading few articles and attending such parties over the years.

LETS GO...

The Hormonic Way!

After a festive weekend Monday blues seems to be back again! This is how I had described the first day of

the week when one of my kindergarten friend now, settled in Canberra, Australia pinged me recently in Skype while I was on a work-related con-call. “Cheer up friend – Monday is only in the head…it is only A DAY! Enjoy the rest of day, Ciao!” she replied.

Hey, do not get me wrong – just wanted to emphasize how a swirl of hormones can create mood swings. Whether it is a business pitch, press conference, group discussion, or a warm hug with a colleague, a plethora of hormones seems to be always playing within us.

This word – ‘hormone’ figured today during a quick coffee break with a colleague that had driven me to pen this.

It is a universal fact that two people meeting face to face can experience alerted body chemistry. The bottom line - how do we get to know which hormone is doing the trick at different situation? I remember several years ago reading an interesting article by a senior faculty of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow who classified three kinds of hormones which can always pep us up!

Interpersonal meeting can create mutual understanding and trust through secretion of hormones such as OXYTOCINE.

Few people enjoying the company of each other can experience surge of DOPAMINE, a special hormone that enriches the neurotransmitter resulting in an enhanced pleasure.

When people bond with high tech gadgets such as cell phones and computers, they produce SEROTONIN that reduces worry and anxiety. And yes, on that day my Monday blues disappeared by connecting with this friend in real-time after decades!

So which hormone is working within you right now? If I sound too Greek and tech then just leave it there and let the magic of all the positive hormones take charge of us within.

WORLD OF BACKUPS

Laugh it out!

It was indeed nice to get recharged after a cool weekend. The weather was truly great but if I said ‘cool’, then you must be the extra lucky ones with the air-conditioners and air-coolers at top speed and uninterrupted power supply.

Well, I was not all that fortunate as I stay on the top floor of a three storied building. I was forced into a sauna bath as the locality was plunged into darkness several times during the prime hours of the evening – courtesy, Delhi power supply! And thanks to them for retaining my slim figure!

However, within minutes most houses in the neighbourhood came back to life with a variety of roaring as well as silent gen-sets.

As I came out to the terrace to feel the cool evening breeze, a zany old man from the opposite balcony noticed beads of sweat trickling down from my forehead and asked me, “Son, why don’t you get a backup for your room…?” Well, the word ‘Backup’ got me so obsessed that I kept on wondering the whole night until I went into a deep slumber!

The next morning I woke up but realized I could not get the hang of that word. Backup here, backup there, backup everywhere and that’s how I came up with this scrap!

The lexicon meaning of backup is to give support, help or encouragement to. Initially, essential services such as radio stations, television stations and hospitals were equipped with a backup power supply to provide seamless services.

Gradually with the change in times, such backup systems came to dominate in the business establishments, educational institutions, offices and domestic sectors.

Whether in Hollywood or Bollywood there is another version of ‘backups’. Here we have backup dancers, backup actors and backup singers.

Similarly, several organisations have adopted backup trainers, backup quality control analysts (QCA) and backups of all hues.

At our office we have the high-tech power backup systems to take care whenever the power distribution companies (DISCOMS) plays prank! There is a dedicated power supply for the lights and cooling systems while another specialized backup to power the central server for ensuring continuous internet connectivity at all workstations.

Keeping such logic in mind, a thought came up and was wondering if this could be taken a step further!? How about backup spouses, backup fiancés, backup boy friends and girl friends!!??

Hey there, if I sound nutty please excuse me but I am sane. Just find out which backup suites you the best!