Don’t Dump Your Cassettes Yet: Meet the Man Who’s Saving Memories

“Won’t let classical music fade without a fight,” says Moloy Ghosh – head firmly in the clouds of a bygone era.

New Delhi’s Moloy Ghosh goes about preserving India’s musical past, one record at a time. (Photo Courtesy: Moloy Ghosh)

Here is a man with his head firmly in the clouds of a bygone era.

New Delhi’s Moloy Ghosh goes about preserving India’s musical past, one record at a time.

Ghosh, 47, has a keen sense of music, knows thousands of Bengali and Hindi songs by heart and can win just about any music quiz. But several greats of the country like violin maestro MS Anantharaman, sports journalist Gulu Ezekiel and architect cum connoisseur of classical music Vikram Lal are thankful to him for perfectly digitising their rare, old and personal music records.

A one man team, Ghosh is now working with libraries of reputed institutions and colleges, preserving records – especially of the most neglected genre, classical – so that the future generation can have access to what he calls ‘India’s true heritage.’

“The Voices of Legends Must Not be Distorted”

Ghosh was always drawn to Tagore songs and Shyama Sangeet by Pannalal Bhattacharya that played on the gramophone records at home. (Photo Courtesy: Moloy Ghosh)

A student of South Point High School in Kolkata, Ghosh was always drawn to Tagore songs and Shyama Sangeet by Pannalal Bhattacharya that played on the gramophone records at home. He even picked the difficult numbers with apparent ease and that made his teacher of standard one, suggest he learn music.

I passed ‘sangeet visharad’ in Rabindra Sangeet at just 18 years of age. I fell in love with old Hindi numbers too, courtesy a noisy neighbour who used to play Vividh Bharti on AIR in full blast! So, while I wasn’t proficient in Hindi, I came to know names and works of legends like Madan Mohan, Anand Bakshi, RD and SD Burman.

Today, his six-year-old daughter is turning out to be a similar prodigy.

However, Ghosh had never dreamt of being an entrepreneur.

In 2008, after 11 years of working in the field of marketing, Ghosh suffered from Hepatitis B that restricted him to his bed for six months. After recovering, he was prohibited from getting back to a field job, so he joined a BPO. But the night shifts played truant with his health. Finally, he decided to embrace music, his first love.

I am trained in Rabindra Sangeet but I also wanted to teach a fading genre called Kabyageeti – made synonymous by Krishna Chatterjee. While I had her LP (Long Playing) records, I went to the then ‘Music World’ in Kolkata for her CDs but discovered there weren’t any. That led me to digitising and remastering old LPs and audio cassettes myself.

Sample the musical piece below, for example. The first part is the old, damaged version – followed by the clean, digitised version by Ghosh:

Over the years, many people have started working on the field of digitisation but Ghosh rules the roost with his mastery over music.

The fact that his wife Chandrani is an MA in Hindustani classical music also helps. (Photo Courtesy: Moloy Ghosh)

The fact that his wife Chandrani is an MA in Hindustani classical music also helps.

As everything is achieved through technology, I have to make sure that each musical instrument retains its original sound in the new version. <b>Also, it is essential that the voices of legends are not distorted.</b> This is where our musical knowledge helps.

The Saviour of Classical Music – and the People He’s Helped

So, he works on the final audio quality, splits the songs into relevant tracks, eliminates pops and hisses and retains the original depth of the LP. One of his many patrons, Manujendra Shah, Maharaja of Tehri Garhwal, says:

Moloy Ghosh has helped save my 78RPM/SP/EP/LPs and even old cassettes by reproducing them in high quality. His work is exceedingly good.

Pandit Debu Chowdhury, eminent Sitarist and former dean, Faculty of Music and Fine Arts, Delhi University, agrees –

I got some of my audio cassette collection restored by him – these were all rare private recordings, some of which contain lecture demonstrations of my guru, Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan: these priceless recordings can help students of the future generation immensely!

“I want India’s rich musical legacy to be there for people to access when the time comes,” says Ghosh. (Photo Courtesy: Moloy Ghosh)

Professor Sharda Velankar, faculty of performing arts, BHU, who got few of his rare recordings digitised from Ghosh, also chimes in,

Although they were commercially published recordings, the digitised versions were not available, so his work is truly commendable.

Ghosh, who didn’t flinch once while pasting handmade posters about his work at various sweet shops in Delhi’s Chittaranjan Park initially, is tireless when it comes to music.

“I want India’s rich musical legacy to be there for people to access when the time comes. I won’t let classical music fade without a fight,” he says simply.

(Runa Mukherjee Parikh has written on women, culture, social issues, education and animals, with The Times of India, India Today and IBN Live. When not hounding for stories, she can be found petting dogs, watching sitcoms or travelling. A big believer in ‘animals come before humans’, she is currently struggling to make sense of her Bengali-Gujarati lifestyle in Ahmedabad.)