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Wrapped
in baniyans of Egyptian cotton, nestled between
Irani saffron and badam pista, lay his destiny,
the transistor. Harsha still remember the
day like yesterday when he got his first radio
transistor, a gift from his mama from Baghdad
-destiny taking a 3 hour flight to Mumbai
in Mama's phoren airbag. It's been years since
his tryst with the tuners of that transistor
set. Fates quirky intervention saw to it that
that the transistor by a defect in its manufacture
could record voice and play music at the same
time. He bent over hours on the device, taking
it apart and fixing it back again, spoke over
the opening tunes of a melody with a make-believe
microphone in his
hands, introduced the artiste just as the
artist hit his note. His foibles with the
fine wires that transmitted the FM, changed
his life for ever.
Harsha
has always been asked how he landed in Radio-
land. And now you know how.
Harsha
was born to the quintessential Indian middle
class family. Loving parents, doting elder
 sister,
cricket in the gullies after school with Vivek
and the boys, kala khatta in the searing summer
heat that turned his tongues a beetroot red,
kori rotis smeared with piping hot chicken
curry in mummy's kitchen and summer holidays
chasing bumblebees and fire bugs in his native
Mangalore. No silver spoon in the mouth story
here, no money-bag spinster aunt just plain
seamless wonderful Indian summer childhood
for him and he is glad it was that way. It
has made him see life without rose tinted
glasses and enabled him to see the soul and
not the shell.
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Sundar
Poojary (Dad), Mohini (Mom) Karthik
(Nephew)
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 At
the airport to bid him farewell to Dubai where
he had landed a job with Channel 4 Radio networks
as their host for the Indian FM, after a country
wide audition- his dad - a retired army personnel
took him aside and told him as a parting shot
that Humility is the master key that opens
all doors- the PhD that ennobles the soul.
He has never heard a more wiser and useful
epigraph ever.
For
a lad of 23, away from the bustling bonhomie
of Mumbai, Dubai was a glossy grandiose affair.
As he gingerly stepped off the airport taxi
on to the Radio4 studios, He felt the warmth
of my parents prayers, the well wishes and
yelps of joy of my excited neighborhood, the
back claps of his buddies, the happy tears
of his sister and as he took to the airwaves
on a winter morning, He felt humbled - Humbled,
to be the first voice on the Hindi radio waves
for Radio 4.
Radio4
was a fledgling then, a novice that gingerly
clambered on its feet, tending to the open
and all too painfully sweet sentiments about
home, parents and a thousand other reminiscent-worthy
feelings that the Indian expatriates holds
close by dulling the pain with the sweet balm
called music. From then to now, it's been
a long and illustrious journey for Radio4
and in some measure -for him.
Then
one day, someone asked him to grab a pen and
romance the paper. Angst, allure, art, and
allegory- anything that articulates the mind
was to be put down on paper. He did just that
and they found his ramblings good enough to
take to print. Surprises don't cease, do they?
Entertainment Plus of the Gulf news carries
his scribbles every Thursday.
We
at Billawas Dubai & NE wish Harsha Poojary
(our Grand patron member) good luck and pray
god that he achieves everything that he dreams.
Article Posted
by Billawas Dubai - 19th September 2006
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