Faceless voices

I grew up listening to the booming voice of Saroj Narayan Swamy via Aakash-Vaani. She used to tell the innocent me about what happens in the world. One moment she would scare the crap out of me by telling me that the world is a hell full of devils and scumbags. The next moment she would make me smile by saying that the world also has shades of the heaven and is populated by a few angels. I grew up amused, bemused and confused by listening to the things she said. Her’s is an amazing voice. It is a voice of awesome clarity. When she said something, you believed her every word. Such was the conviction in her voice. Hers is a genderless voice. Play her voice to anybody without revealing her name and the listener would be left wondering if the voice belongs to a male or female.

Another RJ I adore is Mirchi Suchi. At the stroke of 7 AM she starts with her trade mark ‘Helllllo Chennai’ and goes on to talk about anything and everything in the universe and beyond till 11 AM. Almost half the male population of Chennai has a crush on her and religiously listens to her every word. Unlike Saroj Narayan Swamy, Suchi’s face is pretty popular. Credit should go to her multi-talented personality. She is an award winning writer. And, she can sing. When she sung the peerless ‘Omahazeeyavaahiyaala vaahiyaala zeeyamehazaya’ in ‘Uyirin Uyire’, the whole Tamil Nadu went about its daily routines chanting those divine words. Aliens would have been happy to see humans talking their language. And then Tamil Nadu went on to sway to the tune of Suchi’s May Masam 98'il.

I wonder what the lady looks like, who tells me
1. to bugger off as all telephone lines in the route are busy,
2. that I have correctly dialed the wrong number,
3. that my friend has duped me by giving some random non-existing number,
4. about how late the train would reach the railway station.

I wonder what the people look like, who take the pain to call me to say
1. that his bank is hell-bent to give me a personal loan and I should happily accept it,
2. that I have made a grave mistake while choosing the telephone service provider and hence I should switch to his telecom service provider,
3. that they can help me to make calls to India at the rate of 9 cents per minute and I should avail their service even though I already call India at 5 cents per minute,
4. that there is an excellent opening in a multi-national company’s Bangalore office, which would make me richer,
5. that I should not think twice about getting the credit card that his bank offers me, even if it means that I have to buy a handbag just to carry my credit cards, as my purse could burst anytime.

I wonder what the girls look like, who dub for actresses like Simran, Asin, Jyothika, etc. The voices seem prettier than the pretty actresses.

There was this actor Mohan in Kollywood (I guess he is still around). He was fondly known as ‘Mike Mohan’ (not the Mac ‘Arre O Samba’ Mohan of Bollywood). Mohan became Mike Mohan because he held a mike and sung to it in every single movie of his. There are numerous beautiful memorable tamil movie songs filmed on him. I buy albums of A. R. Rahman and Harris Jayaray even without listening to the songs because of my confidence over those composers. Similarly, people used to buy albums of Mohan starrers. Call it destiny or mere coincidence, Ilaiyaraaja saved his best compositions for Mohan’s movies. Mohan’s voice in movies is equally popular. But, the irony is that nobody knows what Mohan’s real voice sounds like. What people heard as Mohan’s voice in movies was dubbed by a singer called Surender. If Ilaiyaraaja was the backbone of Mohan’s career, Surender was his vocal cord.

I would also like to give a face to the voice that often shouts in my head declaring that I am a total loser and I have no hope whatsoever. Though logic would support giving my face to the voice in my head, I would rather prefer to give it the face of Mogambo or Gabbar Singh.