Free Lossless Audio Codec: A Life In Music For A Retired Engineer In Jabalpur

Jabalpur: Life has been a musical journey for this retired engineer in Jabalpur. His passion for music has made Ramesh Kumar Agarwal possess an unimaginable wealth of Indian music.

He has a collection of 58,000 songs that are not just available on digital platforms but also stand preserved in every format they were released in. These songs can be found in cassettes, records, and CDs as well. This 89-year-old resident has turned his home in Shastri Bridge locality into a museum of music.

He told ETV Bharat, "I began developing an appreciation of music while growing up, and began making a list of songs I liked. At the time, I had no work and no money. I was unable to buy a record player or records.”

He said that in time, after he landed a job with the Rural Engineering Department in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, he began pouring his salary into his passion. He added that despite gadgets being expensive, he kept buying record players, spool tape recorders and cassette players as the technology for playing and recording music kept evolving. He even had a gadget imported from Switzerland.

Since his wife passed away a few years ago, Ramesh lives alone at his home with music as his sole support. He has transformed his home into a museum of music. The drawing room is filled with various gadgets, including record players. He owns over 2,000 cassettes in his bedroom in a specially made cupboard. There is another cupboard for storing CDs, and a spool tape recorder from the days of yore.

Ramesh said, “I have catalogued which songs are stored where in my house. Every cassette, CD and record has a number on it that's saved on my computer. I can listen to any song, whenever I want to.”

And he is a mine of trivia of music. He related how the film Mahua, whose songs he has on a cassette and vinyl, was banned after its release. Another anecdote he shared pertained to a seller demanding 1,000 records from a music company, and the latter sending only 100, since 1,000 was a huge number those days.

Ramesh has digitised all his songs and created a five terabyte storage on his computer. He says with confidence, “You name a song, and I will play it.” He claims to have listened to all the 58,000 songs in his collection.

He shared that he once had the opportunity to meet playback singer Suman Kalyanpur in Mumbai, who had all her recordings copied and given to him. “Seeing my passion for music, Suman Kalyanpur hosted a meal for me at her home,” he said.

He continues to be an avid listener of songs and often invites his friends with a similar taste to his home for a musical gathering. He recalled that he used to travel a lot looking for songs that were not available in Jabalpur.

Ramesh is a little dejected with the music being produced these days, which according to him doesn't give the same satisfaction to listeners like the songs from the past. He said today's music is too noisy, hence, he neither watches modern films, nor includes their music in his collection.

Ramesh also finds today's films politically motivated. “Film is a unique medium and should be used as it has always been,” he said.