The sound of music wafting through the house of Rajeevan T.Y. has an old-world charm.
No great fan of cutting-edge modern music systems compatible with multiple devices and play everything from a CD to micro pen drives, this 58-year-old retired government servant from Thoppumpady loves to play his prized collection of gramophone records in vintage record players from another era.
“The sound these records produce is something very unique and fills me with so much energy,” said Mr. Rajeevan who continues to listen to a few records without fail every day.
It was in the 1980s that he started collecting records from across the State. He got quite a few of them even from scrap shops after being dumped by their original owners. Now, nearly four decades down the line, he boasts of a collection of over 3,500 records accounting for some 10,000 songs.
Being active in social media, his passion for records is now well known and some people reach out to him even now to share the few records in their possession.
Among his collections are rare songs like the one sung by Jose Prakash for the movie Shariyo Thetto in the1950s. “Jose Prakash emerged as a singer first before turning towards acting,” said Mr. Rajeevan.
Two theatre songs by actor Kaviyoor Ponnamma and rare songs of Kozhikode Abdul Khadar also take pride of place. There is also a very rare publicity song for the fertilizer major FACT written by late Vayalar Ramavarma, composed by M.B. Sreenivasan, and sung by K.J. Yesudas.
Records of Malayalam songs dominate his collection though there are quite a few records of Hindi songs sung by Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar. But his most valuable assets remain the collection of Yesudas songs from the 60s.
He has his records lined up neatly in a small hall on the first floor to go along with three vintage gramophone record players.