MUMBAI: Every night in 35 cities across India, listeners as young as 13 and as old as 55 and above are gravitating to a storytelling show on 92.7 BIG FM. Then, listeners from across 19 countries ‘tune in’ and hear the gripping stories -- on Facebook.
92.7 BIG FM’s new show Yaadon ka Idiot Box hosted by author, scriptwriter and musician Neelesh Misra, who scripts and presents it in a unique nostalgia-laced-storytelling-with-songs format, is taking listeners from 13 to 55-plus across 35 BIG FM HSM stations down memory lane.
Show host Neelesh -- an award-winning former journalist and lyric writer of several Bollywood hits who has written four books and is also a scriptwriter -- has built an imaginary world which communicates. A company release claims Neelesh’s style of storytelling is eliciting a mindboggling response – in a short span of 3 weeks, it has crossed a record breaking 1 million-page views on Facebook, with more than 1000 people joining the Facebook page every week.
The name Yaadon Ka Idiot Box comes from the song of the same name from the upcoming album Rewind in Band Called Nine -- the band Neelesh heads.
Neelesh Misra: “This is my first radio experience and I am amazed and humbled to see the mindboggling response from people cutting across ages and demographies. In a country of great oral traditions, this is my humble effort to bring back oral storytelling in the creative space – I am glad that it connected with listeners from Day One.”
A sampling of the diverse kinds of stories Mishra has told so far on the show gives a feel of its personality. Here are some: One story is about a successful executive who might not be able to make it home on Diwali night; another is about a man writing a suicide note; a third is about a childless couple who have wanted a daughter for years and how they finally get one; another is about a college romance; there is one about a student who becomes the principal of his own school and traces an old, forgotten teacher; yet another is the love story of a 42-year-old woman and a 26-year-old man, while another concerns the dilemma of an NRI man considering returning to India.
The stories seem to have connected with listeners on an intimate, personal level – these stories seem to them like their own stories, of people from their own lives from their own nostalgia. Young men and women say they cry when the hear the show; parents are sitting with their daughters who give up primetime TV shows to hear the story; in campuses, young friends are finding it a new way of bonding…
The unique style of story delivery, packaged with the seamless music fit, has fans from across age groups getting drawn to the show and coming back each evening for their daily dose of nostalgia.
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