Louis Ottens - the name may not ring a bell, but his invention had redefined the way a whole generation listened to music. This Dutch engineer, who died on March 6, 2021, is credited with the invention of audio cassette tape recorder.
As an employee of Dutch electronics giant Philips, Ottens and his team were entrusted with converting the bulky spool tape recorders into something portable and easy to use. Philips audio cassette tape recorders made their debut in 1963 and for nearly three decades the cassettes held sway over the music industry.
I vaguely remember seeing a portable cassette tape recorder for the first time in early 70s. It was a Japanese-made National Panasonic (it was known so back then) – a horizontal contraption with piano like keys with the 'record' key blue in colour and rest of them in white. Back then it was a prized possession, akin to i-Phone these days.
The era of unwieldy record players was winding down to a close and making way for cassette recorders. The fastidious care that records and the record players' needle demanded hastened its journey to oblivion. The jokes surrounding the needle getting stuck and song lines getting repeated were numerous. Moreover records could not be 'erased' with newer chartbusters and hence proved quite pricey. For tape recorders an added plus was its capacity to record one's own voice.
However, in India it also happened to be the high noon of licence-permit raj, when even a radio set required licence and one had to queue at post offices to pay the fee. The Indira Gandhi government back then was aggressively pursuing the 'Be Indian, Buy Indian' policy and customs duties for all electronic items, including cassette tape recorders, were prohibitively high.
Hence, global brands such as Philips, Sony, National Panasonic and Hitachi etc were beyond aam aadmi's reach and he had to rest content with questionable offerings that were available locally. They were either unreliable desi brands or dubious fakes of Japanese and German brands, which smooth talking salesmen tried to palm off to gullible customers. It also encouraged smuggling and spawned a grey market for these goods. The situation eased up only in the early 1990s after the Indian economy got liberalised and global brands such as Sony and Samsung started setting up plants in the country.
The advent of Gulf boom in the 70s and 80s created a great leap of aspiration for hi-tech Japanese electronic goods among middle class in India and Dubai turned out to be a procurement hub, thanks to its relaxed customs laws. The 'two-in-one' stereo cassette player became the ultimate instrument for musical nirvana for the middle class. The greater the output of the set the more admired it was, something akin to bike enthusiasts' obsession with 'cc'. In many of the drawing room family photographs taken in that era, the stereo cassette player used to be an unwitting presence.
The coming of Video Cassette Recorders and the proliferation of TV stations in India did dent the demand for stereo cassette players and they soon got relegated to background. The idiot box became the new cynosure of middle class vanity and they lapped up TV serials and filmy offerings like 'chitrahaar' with gusto.
The ultimate death knell to cassette players came with the advent of compact disc players. These sleek teacup coaster sized discs provided superior quality of sound and unlike cassette tapes never got 'stuck' during playback.
Cassette tapes, especially those of poor quality, used to get entangled in the playback head. They had to be removed with extra care and spooled back into the cassette, often using a pencil. Soon cassettes tape recorders began making way for CD players and started disappearing from the drawing rooms of middle class homes.
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