FM

This is your dear Namrata talking to you today. All call me Nammi with love. Listeners…you can also call me the same. I feel very happy to talk to you today. In fact we got more than 100 letters today. Mr. Shaam sent a beautiful letter from Kollegal. He writes, “My dear Nammi, my regards. I love your voice. I wait for your programme. I record your voice and listen through-out the night”. Waaw..! That’s nice of you Shaam. You made my day. Thank you with a bunch of love. Then, from Aresikere…

Niranjan kicked the radio. The FM was still working. FM radio of three rupees sounds however it falls down. He hushes up the volume of the FM which was speaking even after it hit the wall. It was not the first time that Niranjan felt like that. The very style of Nimmi’s speech used to irritate him. Why should she talk so closely with all? Should she read the third person’s letter as if they were her own love letters? Why should she behave so soft? What will she lose if she talks seriously? Is Namrata trying to show her life style by her speech/talk?
Anonymous stupid fellow would record her voice and listen. He must be loving by listing to the voice only. Must be dreaming of Nimmy .I should tell her boldly tomorrow to stop going for the job.

Niranjan got still angrier. He cannot express all this before her. She would accuse him for being ‘suspicious fellow’. What will I lose if I talk a few words? She may call me a pure blockheaded. She would say, ‘I don’t know whom am I talking with? They had ever seen me. You suspect me for these silly reasons?’

Isn’t Cyber chat the same? Chatting with the anonymous, becoming happy for the silly jokes he makes during the chat. Sitting before a computer, without looking at each other and yet getting lost, experiencing the --------- without the touch of the body.
Then, will Namrata experiences it with thousands of people at once? What’s the meaning of such talks? Is that just acting? A rough voice, endearments, a musical tone, a warm hello, wouldn’t not have been tempted her at least for a minute?

Doesn’t speech have that power? Yes, just to listen to the voice of the lady receptionist, my friends used to call on phone. They used to get intoxicated by her voice over phone itself. Is Namrata, like the receptionist, giving pleasure to all? How should I believe that she is not entertaining them by appearing before them through her words/ while talking over phone?

Why did Namrata learn to speak? Why is her voice so sweet? Why this radio, which has gone unpopular, came again?

‘What if she becomes an anchor for TV one day?’ Niranjan wonders sometimes. TV would be better. She appears before the audience. One who appears before eyes frequently may not be liked by all. Only a few may like her beauty. But that will also become routine as the audience watch her daily. Namrata will be disappeared by her weaknesses as the audience starts comparing her with the other anchors. People will ignore her though she is in front of them. But the lady of melodious voice (radio anchor) is not like that. She takes innumerable images by the unseen listeners. She stays deep in their heart. Her beauty is imagined according to the listener’s ability to imagine. Tone may be the one, but the appearance, for those who have not seen her, will vary.

“You should not talk over FM from tomorrow; I can’t beae it any more”. Niranjan made up his mind to tell her as such thoughts cropped up in his mind.
Namrata came home in the evening. Niranjan had returned a few minutes ago. The radio which he kicked off in the noon was still lying against the wall. He left it there intentionally to show his irate. Namrata said, “It’s too boring, my dear. I decided to stop talking on FM from tomorrow. I may join TV. I have got an offer”, serving the food for herself.

A month after this happened, Niranjan was watching TV. Namrata appeared on TV. She spoke with the same enthusiasm and intensity. Niranjan haunted by the inferiority once again. Now he thinks that the radio show was better than the TV. People who used to listen to her inebriating voice used to create their own image in mind. Now Namarata is visible by herself. Her entire beauty is seen by everybody at one glance on TV.

Niranjan thought of kicking the TV off. But he didn’t do so. The TV was recently purchased for thirty thousand rupees and to pay the installments yet.
A few years passed. Now, Namrata stopped talking on TV. She doesn’t talk on radio either. FM has got another voice of a beautiful lady. Niranjan assumes that she is beautiful lady.

On the TV, teen girls with half skirts are appearing. They act inebriating for every word of a caller. They are funny. They are sexy. Niranjan is watching it with all eyes.

NOW, Namrata has stopped talking to him.


Originally written by Shridhar in Kannada.
Translated by me.