On the Internet, community radio becomes a reality

WASHINGTON, DC: Nagesh Pai leads a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde life. His Dr Jekyll version is fairly typical — young, affianced, upwardly mobile MBA from Somaiya College with a planning manager’s job at Mindshare Fulcrum, a media buying arm of WPP, the world's largest advertising agency. His Mr Hyde avatar, though, ranges from being a radio chat show host to singer to guitarist to producer to sound engineer. After all, Pai is the founding chief of Radio Idli, Mumbai’s first community Web radio project, a sort of online studio for people belonging to the Saraswat community who'd want to showcase their talent.

Pai and his friends, amateur musicians all, wanted to start a music group. Since they all had jobs that ensured an almost-zero social life, they did the next best thing — start an online radio community by singing their own songs, creating their own chat shows, and uploading their own version of KBC. “We all met online on Orkut, a social networking site, and created a group we loved to call the Idli House Council,” says Pai. It was named after their favourite hangout, the Idli House restaurant in Matunga. “Naming our project Idli Radio was only natural.”

When it began in January this year, Radio Idli just had 10 members. Today, it reaches an audience of more than 4000 Saraswats with Konkani as their mother tongue and has contributors from Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Kochi, the UK and the US. “Radio Idli would love to see them united into a single community like they were generations ago,” says Pai. “With many of the youth spread out away from their roots, community radio binds them together from the comfort of wherever they are located.”

Pai’s programmes on Radio Idli include songs, chat shows, interviews and spoofs – mostly in the Konkani language, except the songs which are sung by him and his friends straight from Bollywood films. “We began as a simple song submission blog,” he says. “We (meaning he and his friends Samir Halady, Sankalp Nayak, Ananth Joisa, Vivek Pai and Ashwin Kini) regularly devised innovative programmes and encouraged each member to submit. One such contributor is “Lokabhiraam” from Mangalore who provides humorous commentary on everyday life and current affairs, but refuses to divulge his identity.” To create greater interest among the community, Pai also began Chutney Chat, a weekly interview with one prominent member of the community or a popular member of his Idli House Council on Orkut. “Recently, we also began uploading videos of our interviews on YouTube.”

Pai, a classically trained amateur singer, records his own songs along with other members such as Amit Savkur, Archana Kamath, Reshma Pai and Sachin Kulshekhar. DJ Deepak Nayak provides the remixes, while Abhang Gulvady is the resident tabla maestro and Pravin Shirali strums the guitar. “I was initially sceptical about the number of singers, but with each submission, their confidence grew,” says Pai. “The joy lies in discovering new talent within ourselves and in our other friends who may keep their talents veiled till we have a stage to perform.” 

Interestingly, most contributors record their own shows or songs. Those who are technology-challenged, walk to to Pai's home over the weekend to do the recordings. Some even send the files through a web messenger. Once recorded, the files are then edited and uploaded on Radio Idli's blog at radioidli.blogspot.com. 

“Honestly, Idli Radio began keeping fun and experimentation in mind,” says Pai, “but with more people having diverse information and fine talent hooked on to it, my friends and I would love to see Radio Idli as a setting example of a community unifier. A platform through which members interact, help each other and grow together.”