Monday 3 March 2008


I bought an LP player on Saturday.

Arvind, a colleague, took me to the Muslim Colony off Tannery Road, down narrow, crowded roads that reminded me of Hyderabad 20, 25 years ago - past the Ambedkar statue, past the water tank, past stalls selling all kinds of atrocious junk, rusted wrenches, empty cologne bottles and more, sudden medical shop colorful with drug labels, very small television showroom with salesman explaining warranty details to trio in burqa, down narrow lanes to a junk shop on a lazy street, run by one Adaam, middle aged, toothbrush-mustached, in vest and lungi, owner of two sheds full of more empty perfume bottles, beer bottles, old, woebegone fans, lamps, cameras, projectors, stereos of all kinds, from CD players and 8-tracks to LP players - some Mothership-like and ornate with built-in radio, tape deck, videocassette slot, some minimal & compact, with once-clear plastic lids, and somewhere halfway on this spectrum, what is now my own player, early 80s Philips with tape deck and 2-speed turntable (45 and 33).
I also picked up 5 LPS to add to the ancestral hoard: two Peter, Paul & Mary albums, one with beat-talkin' liner notes by Bob Dylan, a Neil Diamond collection, because it was there and I imagined his earlier stuff was okayish, Kraftwerk's Trans Europe Express, and the prize of the haul, Diamonds & Rust by Joan Baez. Worth it for the liner notes alone.



The things our grandparents and parents discarded as junk - these are things some of us are scouring the junkyards for and buying back with our dearly won sheckels. I once saw a beat-up old Viewmaster in one of these shops, but need to find a place to buy picture discs for it before I shell out. Send a postcard if you have a clue.

And finally, to conclude this public service blogouncement:

Moral of the story: Don't throw away what you have, esp. if you plan to procreate.

Postscript to moral: If you don't plan to procreate (and you shouldn't - enough brats being born as it is) - adopt.

Meta-moral: Waste not want not.

6 comments:

HRV said...

Overheard at a location in an Ulsoor lake apartment that night,

"...And my L.P. records and they're all scratched /I can't see the point in another day / When nobody listens to a word I say/
I guess you'd call it cowardice/
But I'm not prepared to go on like this/ I can't, I can't, I can't stand losing/I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't stand losing you"...

JP said...

Yes, exactly!

reeferjournal said...

kickass. Lets get together and listen to some purple and alice cooper sometime.

100hands said...

Meta-sub-moral: Stand inside your love.

Jaideep Sen said...

how do i get to this Mothership lp player, please

JP said...

If in bangalore, try hunting around in the junk shops in the Muslim Colony area off Tannery Road. Also search for the shop Seethaphone on Avenue Road.

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