Devaki Marks aka RJ Devaki adds ‘tadka’ to the mornings of 'Amdavadies' or the people residing in Ahmadabad, with her show ‘Morning No 1 with RJ Devaki’. In an hour long conversation, she comes across as someone who is an ardent lover of arts and theater. In a tete-a-tete with Radioandmusic.com’s Dhairya Ingle, the RJ talks about her childhood, her interests and also her first radio blooper.

Excerpts:

Childhood:

I come from a family where theater is pre-dominant in the house. My mother is an actor and my father is a theatre artiste. Also, the course of National School of Drama was inspired by the first course of Dramatics designed by my grandfather. So right from the time I was born, I had people around me who would rehearse lines for drama. When I was really small, my mom and dad would record lines and keep it next to my cradle so I would think that my parents are next to me. I would also go to the theater with my parents, and that is where I had my first brush with the medium and I learnt the art. Skills like dancing, music, rehearsals, costumes and working in groups came to me very naturally. Also I think the audio recorded by my parents was something that made me feel that voice recording was cool.

Becoming an RJ:

While I was doing theater and studies, there was this RJ hunt that was happening for the first time in our city. A friend of mine wanted to participate in it, and ended up buying a few forms. He asked me to fill one up, and I did so without realising what was going to happen next. While my friend did not clear the first round, I went on to win the contest. After I won, I was asked to join the station. Initially I denied saying I am a very serious person and people would now be interested in listening to me. At that time, one of my seniors asked me, “Can you make you listeners laugh?” and I said no. He asked if I could make them cry, and I said I could try. During my initial days I tried to be someone else because I always felt people would not want to hear the real me. This was where I went wrong, and later I realised that you cannot be someone else all the time. After that I started diving deeper into myself.

Memorable incident on radio:

During my early days, there was this one time that I asked my female listeners if they envied another woman. I received a lot of calls from my listeners that day. I remember this one lady who called. For a few seconds she did not say anything, but I could hear her chocking, so I gave her the time to settle down. After a minute or so she told me that she was jealous of her five year old daughter. Narrating the reason for the same she said, that when she got married, for the first few years she did not have a child. The family’s economical condition was not very sound. But after her daughter was born, everything changed. Their economical state changed and they started living a wealthy life and everyone in the family said it was because of the child. So now whatever the kid does people appreciate her even if it is something as small as getting water in the tray. Everyone praises the daughter, without realising that it is her she puts an effort into make her what the child is. This bothered her to such an extent, that she even thought of committing suicide but only stop because of one pick up line that I use. I always tell my listeners, “If you feel nobody on earth loves you, remember there is one person who really does and that is Devaki.” When she narrated the incident I was frozen. This was the incident which made me realise the power of the radio medium and I started taking my work more seriously.

First blooper on radio

So this was something that happened on my previous job. There were a couple of guests who came to the studio and they had experience of being an RJ. According to the organisation’s policy no one, other than the RJ hosting the show, could go live. But these celebs insisted as they already knew the nuances of RJing. Since our producer was new, she agreed and it was “hand-over” time, which means that another jock was to take the interview ahead. I introduced the guest on-air and the celeb said, "Hello guys, we have Devaki here with us and we are all playing strip poker in the studio.” The moment this went live on-air, I did not know what to do. I tried to do damage control by pressing the kill button, which deletes a part of the sentence. Never in my career did I use a kill button which is why the button got jammed and refused to work. The statement went on air but fortunately, our seniors did not say anything.

Being the Golden Voice of Ahmadabad:

Of course it is human nature to love appreciation. Also let us not forget that even our Prime Minister gets to come on radio, but only once a month. I do it every day. 

Hobbies:

I love dancing and I am a trained Kathak dancer. Along with that I have even learnt other forms of dance, but Kathak is my love. I also love oil painting, so whenever I have free time, I paint.

Favourite genre of music:

I love ghazals by Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Begum Akhtar and many more. Basically I love good music.

Sports:

Cricket is a compulsion for every RJ, but I am not a very keen follower. I love football, and I love Manchester United. I also like tennis and I adore Roger Federer.