Two-year-olds and the JVC.
knicq posted in Knicqisms on November 12th, 2006
Every now and then, I rummage through the collection of cassettes I have amassed over the last twelve years or so. These are occasions when I discover what gems I have had gathering dust in the two drawers dedicated to my cassettes, while I have been playing one of those Jagjit Singh or Ghulam Ali CDs in my car. The thing is, my cassette player went kaput a couple of years ago, when AQ - all of two years old then - figured out how to unlock the TV trolley, which used to house the afore-mentioned contraption. A JVC, made in Japan or not, can withstand the inquisitive two-year-old for only so long, and ours did it best. One after the other, it lost the services of its three CD trays, the last of them fighting valiantly till the end, and actually coming back from the dead once to play us a tune, before it was taken out, literally.
Having accomplished this feat, AQ diverted her destructive attention to the cassette playing unit, which one felt, had lost the battle even before it had begun. Having seen their more illustrious compatriots, the three CD trays, brought to their sorry end right in front of their magnetic heads (I seem to recall something about them heads in there being magnetic), the cassette playing twins realized that their tradition of resilience stood little chance when brought face to face with the perseverance and focus of a two-year-old. This realization was their undoing, their own cowardice their nemesis. AQ was done with the cassette playing unit within the same week in which she had taken out the last CD tray.
It was a sad day in the troubled history of that JVC, which had arrived in our house as a wedding gift from my colleagues in RHS, my first place of work. It had arrived with much fan-fare, the forever technologically challenged me tying the unit as well as myself into knots when setting it up the first time around. Three years down the road, TQ decided that the remote control needed to go. The said remote control was, by then, the most sighted gadget in our house, since it kept appearing and re-appearing out of nowhere before it went into TQ induced hidings. TQ was hardly ever destructive; we know that today - after AQ has redefined destructive. Redefined so, TQ as a two-year-old was docile, peaceful, and an absolute darling around the house, but… he had his days too. On one such day, TQ found a safe-heaven for the remote control, and liberated it from the slavery of us - ever the-remote-control-weilding-button-pushing-exploitative unbearables.
We found it years later, long after the JVC had been laid to rest, in the belly of our drawing room sofa. Whoever thought up the sofa, deliberately made those sides more suited to swallowing people’s important gadgets, and he did so out of spite for people who lose their peace of mind and sense of achievement when they cannot find a remote control they are looking for. Ours, the sofa, was a specimen of what such spiteful people might define as perfection in the art of gadget-swallowing-sofa-making. But for its doubts about it being a gadget, the darned thing could have swallowed our stove as well, which one comes to realize might not have been such a bad idea too - those stoves are perfectly capable of handling themselves as well as any impudent sofas. One is inclined to surmise that an epic battle, much like an imaginary battle between a dragon and a whale might have ensued. Alas!…
I digress… and I continue to digress until I digress from digressing. This was not to be the tragic biography of a not Made in Japan JVC music player. What I was, in fact, going to tell you was how pleasantly I am often surprised by the options I find in my cassette trove, when having played the CDs and cassettes I have been carrying around with me in the car, I bring them home to replace them with those I have not heard in some time.
The JVC found mention simply because I was going to explain to you that I do not have a cassette player at home, anymore. The only cassette players I have these days are the ones my Blackeys come fitted with. It was not always like this. Did I tell you about this JVC player that was a wedding gift from my colleagues at RHS, which was my first place of work. It fell prey to the merciless prosecution of inquisitive two year olds…*fades*
*Begum Akhtar Cassette plays*
November 13th, 2006 at 8:55 am
You wouldn’t possibly be trying to sweet-talk us into getting you a brand spanking new JVC, would u? NICE TRY MISTER!
November 13th, 2006 at 9:29 am
:D, yup man. The old collection and dusty covers but always worth it.
November 14th, 2006 at 12:20 am
Salams knicq! been a loooong time, though I should stop by and say hi. Dil-e-nadaaaann!
November 14th, 2006 at 8:55 am
knicq bhai, i would never choose to NOT come to dubai, especially knowing you all are there. my bank account has forced my hand this time.. Dubai (and meeting you all) will have to wait for now but insha’Allah I will come someday.
November 14th, 2006 at 11:28 am
Msh: One of the two things I like about you is that you catch on so quick.
The other thing of course is th fact that you know me.
Saadie: Guess what did I dinf lying hidden in my CD collection? The second volme of Milestones…now you kids might not know this band, but it was one of those non-Junoon, non-Vital Signs bands that dared to come out with a different sound back in the early 90’s. Aand I found Aamir Zaki!!!
Shaykhspeara: Thanks for the visit…:)
Now is that dil-e-nadaaan from Jagjit’s rendition of Ghalib? Or from Begum Akhtar’s rendition?
Or it just Dil-e-nadaaan?
Anjum: This is why I hate the banking system…especially the part where it is able to force our hands into not doing something we would love to do…we see you soon Insha Allah…it wasn’t very long ago when none of the bloggers I mentioned had alighted in good ol’ UAE…it won’t be long before you and everyone else we love comes visiting…)
November 15th, 2006 at 5:46 am
“brevity is the soul of wit” — william shakespeare.
there is a reason why the guy is a legend and you are not. not that im implying anything or making any obscene referances to your post(s) above, below, or otherwise buried in the archives.
November 15th, 2006 at 6:02 am
I am extremely proud to know that little TQ and AQ take after their unseen chotey uncle. Rock on, toddlers!
November 15th, 2006 at 9:01 am
Hemmie: The reason, my dear, is that ‘that’ guy is dead and I am not - yet.
Same goes for Ghalib, and Yawar respectively.
What makes people legends is the fact that they are ahead of their times, and it is therefore some time before people relize how great they are…I do not expect you to understand, but let me elaborate…
Take, for an example, the quote you have started with…in Shakespeare’s times, people were given to long-winded prose, and would take ages getting to what they had to say…Shakespeare realized an opportunity there…people needed a change from set ways…he brought in brevity. In an age of sms/txt language, the opposite holds true…people are sick and tired of that excessive brevity and will find me a legend for fighting this battle against brevity.
JB ought to be proud of me today.
Saadat: You rock chotey bhai…and the toddlers follow happily!
November 15th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
on the subject of JB, where be he? tell him i miss him! =D
November 16th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
Who knows where JB is. Its a question that baffles many.
JB, Hemlock misses you.
November 17th, 2006 at 11:21 am
Come knicq, you can fool all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time…but not all the people, all the time
We all know that Hemlock and JB are just your two alternative personas, maybe your id and your super-ego respectively… so its about time you stopped talking with yourself!
November 17th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
Moderate Bhai, this is an accusation, and in measures slander as well as libel.
That I should try to fool all of the people all the time is an accusation, that Hemlock should be an ID me is something she will treat as slander, while I will treat the prepostrous charge that JB should be MY super-ego as little less than libel. JB is nothing but his own super-ego’s super-ego.
November 17th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
NEWSFLASH: reports have just come in that hemlock has commited suicide after reading ME’s comment on knicq’s blog. Having the option of blowing her brains out and jumping off a very, very, very tall building, she opted for the fall — figuring the torment of her life flashing by would ease the excruciating pain caused as a result of ever having read a comment that associated her in any way whatsoever to the said blog author.
as per japanese tradition, we expect her woebegone soul to haunt knicq, ME and JB (the last thrown in for creative effects) until the grudge can finally be at peace.
MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
btw, knicq, is there ever a time you are NOT stalking your own blog?
November 18th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
May Hemlock’s soul haunt ME and JB in peace…
…and Yes, Hemmie, I do happen to take a nap every now and then…answers your question?