on a hot may afternoon captain a d manek takes a break from a lecture to aspiring pilots at his flight training school in borivli west and slips into a small room on the same first floor slouching in a chair he brings out an lp or long player from its fading paper jacket and places it on the old gramophone player the instrument spins to life and the legendary kishore kumar croons gadi bula rahi hai siti baja rahi haichalna hi zindagi hai chalti hi ja rahi haithe lilting song from dost 1974 fills the air in the dimly lit room having heard this song he changes the track and the famous mesmerising voice of lata mangeshkar further lifts the mood with jiya beqarar hai aaee bahar haiaaja mere balma tera intezaar hai from the black and white barsaat 1949 a few more songs later manek resumes his lecturemiddleaged manek has a delightful hobby of listening to the old hindi film songs on a gramophone player from lps which have almost vanished from the music scene with over 1000 lps mostly hindi besides a few gujarati and english titles he has arguably the countrys biggest private collection of lps music lovers switched over to albums and online long ago but manek is clinging to the old tracks many in their original stereophonic soundthese are like my lifelines whenever i feel tired sad or bored i return to my music room and listen to some of these numbers they have kept me company for years and will be with me for as long as i live says manekborn in a village in manekpur in surat gujarat manek saw poverty from close quarters much before his family moved to kurar village in malad west and manek singlehandedly fought his battles to realise his childhood dream of becoming a pilot he later founded the flight training school he would cut grass in his village and sell it in a local markethe recalls a neighbour who owned a radio set every week he along with a few friends would surround the transistor to listen to legendary broadcaster ameen sayanis binaca geet mala programme where he played the weeks popular filmi songs i fell in love with ameeen sahabs voice and the hindi film songs i began collecting lps he recalls then one day i bought a secondhand gramophone player from a bhangarwala scrap dealerbut why didnt he switchover to cassettes albums or downloaded songs as they were put online listening to songs from lps is like sitting at a live concert the sound the rhythm the notes are so natural he explainsthere are songs from hit films like pyaasa pakeeza sahab biwi aur ghulam dhool ka phool solva saal waqt and sharmili films whose songs have entertained music lovers for decades not every aficionado though can boast of a dedicated music room not many music lovers dust off lps to enjoy evergreen numbers on gramophone players once popular at weddings birthdays and other