Recording is a serious business

Appa loves to record. I remember him sitting up late, past his usual bedtime of 9 pm, to record the All India Radio classical music broadcasts on Saturdays. Next day morning we would wake up to the new recording played on our spool recorder. However, appa also loves to erase and re-record. As he also dislikes to write down what he has recorded, none of us know what each cassette/spool tape holds.

My brother loves to classify. He is meticulous and orderly, his collections are all neatly labeled and alphabetically organized.

After much protest, appa agreed to certain changes. Each cassette that he records will have only two artists at a given time. Occasionally, he slips. As he discovered today.

Side A:
One song by R. K. Srikantan
One song by Maharajapuram Santhanam.
An announcement about the Afro-asian games. This gives us the clue that the recording was done some time in 2004-2005, when I was living in Bangalore.
One song by Sheik Chinna Moulana
Two violin pieces-unknown artist

Side B:
Vocal.
Sowmya
Unnikrishnan
Balamurali Krishna
Nityashree


Occasionally, I too can classify. On the cassette, I have written "Recorded. Different Artists".

Recording, as I said, is a serious business. Classification is even more.