Those were simple times. A cassette of Shah Rukh Khan's Yes Boss, a mixtape filled with Mohammed Rafi songs, and a Walkman, that's all we needed back then. 

After the launch of the Walkman in 1979, Sony went on to defining the 80s and the 90s when it comes to portable music devices. With India's economy opening up in 1991, and yours truly being born the same year, we had a flood of new products from all over the world fill up our markets. This included the cheap Chinese knockoffs of the original Walkman and the many devices Sony's competitors came up with to tackle the unstoppable juggernaut.  

I was too young, back then, to know the existence of the bands I would go on to appreciate later in life. As I hear stories from people older than me discovering Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin when their older cousins gifted them the cassettes and the fact that they could take the tapes with them everywhere and listen to it on the Walkman in a time when people were still quite unfamiliar with the bands made me quite jealous. Of course, people are still unfamiliar with the bands today, but today they have the internet to easily discover some really incredible songs. Back then, you had to be lucky to get your hands on The Division Bell or at least one of Led Zep's many albums. 

The release of the Walkman turned the market upside down, with people shocked that they could just put their favourite cassettes in a device that could fit in their pocket. People started clipping it to their belts or bags while on a walk, at work or at the gym. They could carry their music collection with them and play it anywhere they liked, that was an insane prospect, in days without the internet where people couldn't even have dreamed that a service like Spotify would exist today. 

Me, I had a simple life. I would go to school, then back to my house, record songs on the double decker stereo we had at home, make mixtapes and give them funny names before exchanging with people. I had a ton of mixtapes, the only problem was that back then we had no idea they were called mixtapes. We would record the songs we had on other cassettes and give them to our friends so our collection never went out of the house. 

It was a magical time, the 90s. 

Of course, the years went by and cassettes moved on to CDs, with CD players pretending to be Walkman sneaking into the market and disappearing as quickly as before. The CDs, however, opened up a new avenue in music, the sound was crisper, the bitrate was higher, and it was an overall better experience. But such was the effect of Walkman that it prevailed, and only slowly started going out of relevance when Apple's iPod came into existence. 

But, the memories remain. The Walkman has made its way to popular media more than once. Peter Quill, played by Chris Pratt, in Guardians of the Galaxy holds dearly onto the one gifted to him by his dying mother and keeps it close despite being kidnapped by aliens. Venom Snake from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain carries a Walkman with him into the field at all times, and the player has the option to listen to music as we continue our infiltration efforts. 

It isn't always a good idea to dwell on the past, especially on the weekend when everyone should be out with friends or spending quality time with family, but when I saw that it was the anniversary of the Walkman's launch, I had to do this piece. It brings back so many memories, and if we've never experienced the past, how will we appreciate the future?

That being said, I'm in the mood for some Phantom Pain. Keep reading, and do leave comments!