I guess I can say that I have a symbiotic relationship with mikes. I come face to face with them everyday almost in at least one of my avataars.

I use a mike for my voice-overs. I need them for my lectures and workshops. I am surrounded by them on stage. They are an integral part of my film making process. They are in my phone and in my PC.

So Mike, I would say is a good friend. And like any good friend, he is honest and kind only upto a level that his credibility is not compromised. If I am sounding good, he enhances the qualities of my voice. If I am off colour he tries to cover it up and if that’s not possible tells me very clearly that ‘today’ is not my day.

Now good friend that he is, he drops in often at home to have a chat. And we often land up chatting away late into the night. Two deep voices talking about all and sundry. People. Things. Ideas. Thoughts. Deeds. Misdeeds. There is no limit really and we don’t bother to censor our comments.

The free flow, heart to heart sessions are a huge relief for me. A true  stress reliever for sure. And I guess we both understand each other and draw some unseen lines.

No shouting matches is an unwritten rule. Leave the amplification to the Ahujas, the Philips, the Marantz and so on, Mike always says. We are the Royalty in this business, the Voice and The Mike. The amplifier is the common man and it is his job to carry our tales to all who want to listen.

But last night, I saw a different shade of Mike altogether. He came in shouting. Almost screaming. I was shocked. Was he drunk, I thought. And to make matters worse he was sounding incoherent. Not the usual Mike at all.

I calmed him down. Wrapped him snugly in a windshield. Caressed his face. And then asked him gently what was wrong.

He almost exploded again. Wrong…wrong…he stuttered. I gave him a quick ice feel and brought him down to normal. And then he told me…

I can forgive anybody Vijay, he told me. But I cannot forgive Manthan. Come on man, Manthan is run by Ajay Gandhi, a Chartered Accountant by profession and a man of details by passion.

He is used to checking everything a hundred times before okaying anything. He is used to demanding 100% accuracy.

Yeah, yeah I said…unable to understand what he was getting at.

You know Vijay, he continued…it was alright when the amateur theatre chaps mess up on mike placements, mess up on lapel mikes and so on. It was alright when some of them were lost to the audiences because of ill planned sound systems. But Ajay!!! Manthan!!!

No way. What happened at Sanjaya Baru’s event was unforgivable. Of the three or four mikes that were present not even one was a 100% ok. Sanjaya’s lapel mike was the first to buckle under the strain of the occasion…and Sanjaya hadn’t even started yet. Then he started a merry go around of mikes, trying to find one that could deliver his message without a hiccup.

Come Q & A time, and the shit really hit the fan. No mike management crew in place. And when the mike did reach a questioner it refused to work. So the audience did not know what the question was that Sanjaya was responding to. Till he started paraphrasing the questions for the sake of the audience.

This was not a last minute event. This was a well planned one. Like most events are nowadays. Then what happened?

Was the sound check shoddy? Was the equipment at fault? Where were the shortcuts taken? Where did they compromise?

You don’t see such embarrassing mike failures in Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore, even Chennai…Imagine Narendra Modi’s  speech facing a mike failure. Someone obviously is doing things better, more carefully. Paying more perhaps, looking at more backups definitely.

Then why is it that in Hyderabad there is a problem almost everytime.

I realised that he had a point…did Mike. There was indeed a problem in Hyderabad. I have so many times landed up at swank studios only to find that there was a loose connection. I have witnessed many plays that managed to amplify only a half of the dialogs and left the rest to our imagination. I have had to, on many an occasion, had to use brute force to make myself be heard.

And yes, I can accept it in a village or a small town. But in Hyderabad…this has to stop. And stop fast.

Because whether Mike is sensitive or not, whether I am patient or not…the rest of the people have reached the end of their tether. Their tolerance has been tried to the extreme. And a definite snap is due. And you don’t want to be a victim of the backlash.