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At 6am on a working day, there’s nothing quite like being woken up at sunrise by the sounds of nature … or the welcoming tones of Bahrain’s popular Indian radio jockeys.
‘Goooood morning’ are the words that have become RJ Hemang and RJ Nyssha ‘tagline roar’ to wake up their loyal fans as they tune in to 104.2FM’s Morning Drive show before heading off to school or the workplace.
Bahrain’s newest, and only, Indian radio station, Your FM, launched in June this year and has become home to a wild duo that describe their airwave relationship as ‘completely filled with friendly banter’ – eat your heart out the long-lamented Krazy Kevin, it’s double the madness in this studio.
RJ Hemang, from Juffair, said: “Our main aim is to start the day off on a positive tone. Although it’s called the Morning ‘Drive’ we don’t really catch them in their cars … we catch them in bed!
“Many listeners have informed us that they wake up to our ‘good morning’, which means they rely on us to be their alarm clock, which is very flattering, so we incorporated it as our catchphrase. The main aspect of our show is to involve the listeners from 6am to 10am, six-days-a-week.”
The Morning Drive is a lifestyle based four-hour programme airing Saturday to Thursday. The show primarily plays recent and chart-topping Bollywood hits but also consists of different segments focusing on recent news, games and, more recently, interviews with professionals and experts highlighting health issues such as diabetes and cancer.
DJ Nyssha, who lives in Umm Al Hassam, said: “Although most of our audience is Indian, we do get other expats and a lot of locals tuning in too.
“Because I’m known on-air to throw random tantrums, we have received calls from fans on my calmer days begging Hemang to say something that will upset me. Our listeners just love to hear me get ridiculed every morning.
“The reason why our show is so popular is because of the impromptu nature of it all – none of it is planned and we have an absolute blast while recording.”
Although the target market for the show is the working Indian population, both the RJ’s have discovered an increase in mothers tuning in as one segment in the programme caters to young children.
RJ Junior is where kids aged five to 15 share a personal story with a ‘moral of the day’ to listeners. In addition, the educational aspect of the show, where the jockeys share interesting and bizarre facts, draws in a number of school children wanting to show off their newfound knowledge to their friends.
However, the most popular segment is Bol Baby Bol, which translates in English to ‘Tell Baby Tell’. This is where a series of questions will be asked to a caller who must answer the question followed by a funny tagline that changes the context of the answer.
Nyssha said: “They are not just listeners anymore; they are part of the show. At the end of the day the thing the listeners take away with them is the nonsense that we are providing and sometimes it’s that light-heartedness that is needed early in the morning.”
Nyssha, who believes that an RJ’s last name and age should never be told, moved to Bahrain only four months ago to join Your FM’s team.
The professional dancer was studying for her Master’s in Maths in her hometown of Mumbai before her friend filled out her resume and handed it in to a radio station in India, Red FM in 2005. Her reasoning behind it all: Nyssha loves to talk! She got the job.
Nyssha described it through a Hindi saying which translated as: ‘I popped out of the sky and landed where I was supposed to be’.
Hemang, who was willing to disregard the unspoken radio age and name rule before Nyssha launched into one of her usual ‘tantrums’, has 10 years of radio under his belt.
Starting his career as a Maths and English teacher and then realising his passion lay in theatre, he travelled around India to star in a number of plays.
After being spotted by a scout he moved to Dubai in 2005 to work for Radio City 101.6 FM. He later returned to his hometown, Mumbai, to work for Big FM before moving to Bahrain four months ago with his wife, Vrinda, and their cheeky three-year-old son, Kritarth, who Nyssha believes ‘has her back’ when it comes to annoying Hemang.
*104.2 Your FM caters to Bahrain’s Hindi-aware communities. While the station predominantly broadcasts in Hindi, there are slots for music and programmes in other Indian languages as well. It provides round-the-clock entertainment for the entire family. Live streaming of the station can be done on its website: www.yourfm.bh
