FM Radio : A quest
Here's a question : How difficult is it to buy an FM radio set in Bangalore if you are in the Indiranagar area? Not easy at all, I've concluded after spending over three hours looking for one.
It all began when I realised one day the reason my house was so quiet. It was because the good folk at Motorola had forgotten to put an FM radio receiver into my L6. That was when I decided that a nice radio would liven up my 10PM to midnight slot well. My requirements were simple really:
- It must have a speaker built in to blare out music loud enough to disturb my neighbours.
- It must draw AC power. I didn't fancy changing batteries every Friday at 10:21PM.
And so I set off, thinking it would be an easy task, since I was surrounded by dozens of electronics shops all of them eagerly waiting for the knight who would come to rescue his, er, radio. I couldn't have been more wrong.
The guys at the first shop (for want of a better word, let's call them salesmen) were busy watching cricket on one of their indecently large plasma TVs and paid no more attention to me than they would if I were a tree stump. One of them finally looked up during a commercial break and told me they didn't sell such things as radios. The second shop didn't seem to know what radios were and the third tried to sell me a thing that could play CDs, audio cassettes, video cassettes, DVDs, and wash your clothes and cook your food, with an FM receiver thoughtfully built in, so you can enjoy the music while the thingummy washes your clothes or cooks your food or, well, plays some other music.
It was the same story with the other shops as well, with salesmen trying to sell me odd devices ranging from ones that could play audio formats not even invented to ones that could separate Uranium-234 from Uranium-238 and ones that could do back-flips and fight space aliens, all with FM receiver built in. Since my requirements didn't exactly specify separation of Uranium isotopes or alien warfare, I patiently explained to the salesman that I didn't want any of those fancy gadgets - I just wanted a simple FM receiver. The salesman grinned, showing all his 29 teeth, probably implying that he had just brushed with an electric toothbrush, oh, with an FM built in of course. That's when I finally understood the problem - radios are no longer sold as stand-alones; they are always built into something else. No wonder I seemed out of place. It was as odd as asking for a lone human hand at a shop that sells full human beings; the hand just can't be purchased like that (I am not sure if it's entirely legal to purchase human beings, so this analogy might not be completely appropriate).
I finally gave up the search. I was too tired to enjoy anything but a good night's sleep anyway.
Epilogue: I finally got what I wanted two days later - not in Bangalore but in Chennai. I am now the proud owner of a Philips Bahadur DL-167. Plays crystal clear sound. Apparently if all you want to buy is a radio, humble Chennai is better than glossy Bangalore.
Meanings of difficult words:
Radio: An electronic device that has a couple of knobs which when turned causes the speaker to produce interesting sounds. For more information, contact your grandpa.
FM: The electronic jiggery-pokery done on sound before it is tossed up in air. Stands for Freaky Magic. (A guy in my office tells me it stands for Frequency Modulation, but don't worry. I think he was only joking.)
Salesmen: The kind folk at shops that do little more than guide you to the next salesman who in turn guides you to the next salesman and so on until you find yourself at the exit.
Electronics store: A store that sells plasma TVs and more plasma TVs. Might even sell ordinary TVs if you go on a lucky day after duly consulting your almanac. Does not sell anything that begins with an R.