I wish there were some way I could easily digitise my cassettes. There is none. It will require playing each cassette and recording it on a computer. Time consuming. I have an ace up my sleeve. An old Walkman. No not a Walkman, it is a Sanyo portable stereo that plays audio cassettes. Quite nice with auto reverse, radio AM/FM and recording facility with a built-in microphone. It lacks a belt-clip and is bulky in the jacket pocket but is sturdy.

In the years gone by people who’d walk with headphones clamped on their heads were oddities. They attracted stares. Joggers with headphones were still accepted. Maybe the bystanders thought the joggers’ hardwork justified some entertainment in the form of music.

The hands-free kits of cellphones have changed this. Car drivers, bus drivers, auto drivers, rickshaw pullers, bike/scooter drivers, the elephant’s  mahout, the horse rider, the bullock cart-walla, the crowd in the metro, the young and the old, the vegetable vendor, the kabadiwalla, the painter perched on the ladder while painting the roof, the plumber fixing the drain under the sink, the electrician repairing the door bell, who doesn’t have earphones plugged in the ears?