WordPep

WorldSpace India, Left Worlds Full of Void Spaces

WorldSpace India quit all of a sudden in late December last year. The departure was indicated just by an email to thousands of subscribers and a few sporadic news articles. If at all, the electronic media announced this formally on any of the news channels is not confirmed, as many subscribers were ignorant of the fact. Many even went to the trouble of trying to “fix” their WS antenna or the receiver in order to get the music playing. People do keep email ids but many do not check them on daily basis. The email ids that they give to companies (like WS), with whom they do not communicate on a frequent basis are the ones that are checked sometimes weekly, or even fortnightly. End of December being the hottest holiday season, most of the WS subscribers may have been away from their desks and their computers.

The main point is that WS exit is not making the flutter that it should have made. Why? It is because WS was not just a service; it was an experience. And, the people who have not experienced it cannot fathom the depth of grief it has caused in the hearts of those who had made it a part of their lives. WS was not just radio, or satellite radio, to be precise. It was an amazing world of music carefully chosen, artistically presented, and magnificently played.

The Facebook group “Keep WorldSpace India Alive”, mainly being seen as an advocacy group, is more than that. In fact, just calling it an advocacy group may be an insincere interpretation. It is an emotional plea by users to the company to not deprive them of the spiritual realm its music created for them. A couple of days back, one person messaged on Twitter WS forum that, ‘if he dies within a week due to a heart attack, everyone knows who is to be blamed’. In support to this argument, I wish to highlight another group that has started on Facebook – “A New Space for WorldSpace, India”. It has less than 100 members as of now, but the effort is directed toward keeping the company operations alive in India at all costs, even at a raise of subscription amounts or formation of corporations, independently running the show. Whether these may be practical things to do or no, remain to be seen. Presently, it is purely an emotional outcry.

Very rarely in the history of any business, it happens that users clamour for any particular service with such poignant energies. WS has achieved the impossible and then chosen to quit. Leaving a void, and a reverberating question behind, WHY…?