Those who tune into FM radio stations in the morning can’t miss the presence of Baua. A fictitious character, some find him irreverent, some find him irritating but no one can ignore his voice for he represents the common migrant who doesn’t lose his sense of humour in the cruel world. For many he is a guy who is seeking abuse but for millions of Bauas, who are abused every day in the metros, he is a hero who has the last laugh. For two years Red FM hid the man behind Baua. But the market doesn’t allow anonymity even to RJs. So Raunak it is. The RJ has recently won the Best Radio Sparkler of the year award at the Indian Radio Forum Awards. “Baua reflects what you hear around you if you care to listen,” says Raunak as we meet for a chat over spicy snacks in Tamra restaurant of Shangri-La’s-Eros Hotel.
Raunak doesn’t carry a voice that we usually associate with radio artistes. Though he started his career with the All India Radio, his timbre doesn’t have the AIR stamp. Raunak agrees that he belongs to the new school and compares AIR with Ranji Trophy where voice artistes find form. “There are two kinds of RJs: One that talk from a pedestal and the other who become one with the audience. I belong to the latter,” relates Raunak
Apart from content and wit, perhaps, it is this neutrality of voice that allows him to shed Baua and become Sukumar Vishwas, a take on poet and senior Aam Aadmi Party member Kumar Vishwas, within minutes. “At times, I am better than the original,” he quips but you can’t deny that he creates a stinging commentary on the times to Kumar’s staple tune every time.
Raunak often brings political content in his programming and feels that in Delhi you can’t do without politics. “However, even current affairs have to be presented in an entertaining way. You can’t say now listen to the headlines of this hour.” But at the same time, he says, he realises the social value of the medium. “Even the Prime Minister is on radio now. He has chosen to be on air on Sundays, when I don’t have a show,” he says with tongue firmly in cheek. “Seriously speaking, radio and newspaper are mediums that you can carry with you all the time and one should respect their sanctity. There is a thin line in being entertaining and being frivolous and most RJs know when they cross the line.”
Between Baua and Vishwas, Raunak devotes time to serious stories as well. Recently, he picked up the case of a two-day old girl who was left by her parents on the Govindpuri Metro Station. “You can’t do anything funny around it.” But the channel follows it with a chartbuster or an ad break. “It is the format. Given a chance I would have liked to play a song like “Main Kabhi Batata Nahin.” On FM, music often doesn’t change with mood of the day. You can have “Chaar Botal Vodka” playing at dawn. “It is perhaps a way to pump the guys who are in the gym,” reasons Raunak citing the limitations of the format. “If Set Max keeps on showing Sooryavansham , you can’t do anything about it. You can only change the channel.”
The rain delayed our meeting and in the meantime Raunak took a detour to Mandi House and had some bread pakodas. “The cholera-causing ones!” he says with a straight face. With rain refusing to relent, it’s time to try samosa chaat with kabab platter. Raunak picks hot chocolate while I stick to my orange juice. It helps for a few minutes later as it becomes a metaphor for Gulzar’s poetry. “I celebrate the birthday of Sameer. He is the shikanji that I get at Mandi House. Gulzar fans will find it infectious but the fact is you can’t expect ‘Main to Raste Se Ja Raha Tha’ from Gulzar sahib.”
Born and brought up in Mumbai, Raunak has his roots in Ayodhya. The need to brush up his Hindi/Urdu made him join Red FM in Lucknow. He wanted to go back to Mumbai but the channel told him the route goes via Delhi and then his popularity didn’t allow him to seek transfer. Baua, which is an equivalent of Chhotu in Delhi, was born during an experiment when Raunak was trying to understand the value of name and voice in the Capital. “The moment I changed my voice to Baua, which has Bihari touch, the person on the other side lost interest in me.”
A pure vegetarian, Raunak, these days, refrains from onion and garlic as well. “I take Jain food and am waiting for the day when the restaurants will offer Jain chicken tikka!” The one liners keep coming but sometimes the impact could be serious. Sabudana (sago) khichdi is his favourite so much so that when his father performed his grandfather’s shradh, he came up with an unusual demand. “I was a kid and realised that on shradh you prepare the favourite food of the demised soul, put it on a banana leaf and leave it in the open. I asked my mother to prepare sabudana khichdi on my shradh. I didn’t realise the enormity of the situation. Since then she feeds it to me as often as she can. Now I have learnt to prepare it myself.”
Silence is an important part of a radio jockey’s life and Raunak knows it value. “I do yoga and meditate for two to three hours everyday.”
Even as he finds samosas’ presence in a five-star hotel as anachronistic, the discussion goes back to his college days when he was sent to take care of his father’s elder brother during his cataract operation. “As I was doing B.Com, I was considered dispensable. For three months I was trained in cooking by my mother. I learnt everything but could not get the taste right. Perhaps, that’s why my uncle’s cataract matured early and had to be operated upon.”
But Raunak’s sweetest story goes back to his Lucknow days when he forced the famous mango man, Kalimullah, to part with his mangoes that he had dedicated to Sachin Tendulkar. “In the 2010 IPL final, Mumbai Indians lost out to Chennai Super Kings despite Sachin’s great performance. In his honour, Kalimullah named a mango variety. When I interviewed him on a live show, he said the tree has 60 kg mangoes. I told him Sachin can’t eat more than one mango a week and we had his trainer to back our claim. At the most his family could consume 10 to 12 kgs. We requested him to distribute the rest of the mangoes in Lucknow. A simple man, Kalimullah said he would if Sachin says so and cut the line.”
Next day, Raunak took a flight to Mumbai and after a week and lots of hiccups made Sachin say yes to his request. “Kalimullah was shocked with my gall and offered me one of his farms. I said I need only aam!”
