RJing is something that happens in one’s life and leaves memories for a lifetime.
There was nothing better I could imagine for myself when it comes to communication. It is reaching people’s hearts through their ears. A ‘love show’ was quite a challenging concept for Ajmer when I started out, pertaining to the orthodox and closed culture. The most critical part was that I was not a native of the city. But still I decided that I will make an effort to be their SANAM – that was my on-air name quite synonymous to my on – air character and most importantly, it summarized my thoughts in one word.
Then began my journey – I collected all the romantic stuff that I wrote earlier and started my show. It surprised me. The response was unexpected. The love thirsty city responded to my rainfall of emotions. With each passing show the audience grew and so did I. The earlier SMS filled with anonymous love confessions and secretive expressions changed into open love proposals. The listeners became more and more expressive and the frequency of phone calls increased with each passing day. People became more confident in expressing their emotions and many callers opened their hearts via messages and calls.
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‘Ye dillagi’ became the most popular show of the city and Sanam became the most adorable RJ. The conventional Love guru notion was presented in a very different manner. I became their friend, agony aunt, counselor, love pigeon and a lot more. And most importantly, all that I said was right from my heart and I too felt the warmth of all the emotions in and around my show.
The most hyped issue of the show was the identity of Sanam – who is he? How does he look like?, is he married? Where does he stay? Were the questions that were puzzling the minds of my audience. However, it is a pleasurable feeling to see people so eager to know about you and so excited to meet you.
The majority of the phone calls that were made to the studios were for sanam and it was quite amazing that incoming calls were round the clock even when the show was not on air.
There were many memorable shows filled with varied emotions and feelings. There were patch ups, proposals, messages, gestures, expressions, confessions, love, jealousy, problems, solutions and a lot more that cannot be described in words. I felt like a wisp in the whole campfire of emotions.
I imbibed the show within myself and vice versa. I could not mark a line where my personal self ended and where Sanam began. Ye Dillagi amalgamated in my personal life too. Each daily experience became the trigger for my scripts. I got more and more personal with the show and that feeling was responsible for its connectivity with the masses.
The most satisfactory feeling was that I was not just couriering messages but instilling love in their hearts. I was not just a jockey who tried to fill the wee time between songs but rather the songs seemed to be an interruption in my talks – as my listeners convincingly told me.
There was a whole range of listeners from a school boy to a middle aged man but the common thread that joined all of them with me and my show was the universal emotions of Dil and its Dillagi. There were loyal listeners who stuck to their radio sets, there were more active ones who always messaged and took part in contests. Then there were the naughty ones, eager to know about something a little too personal and there were ones who felt connected just for love’s sake. Oh! I almost forgot to tell you that it happened during Sep 2007 to Feb 2008 and the show time was from 08 to 11 pm on Big 92.7 FM Ajmer Station.
Lokesh Gulyani – Programming Head, 93.5 Sfm- Jaipur Station
