Coffee machines, birthday parties and commercial breaks

The Radio Foorti office, the whole of last week, was draped in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet! The frequency 88.0 FM was also in festive tones, when on September 21, 2013, the radio celebrated its 7th birthday. The office was filled with an assortment of jilapi, laddu, shingara and what not! Actors, musicians, journalists and radio jockeys from other radio stations joined the celebration, as Radio Foorti cut its birthday cake. (I believe the station had at least 5 cakes last week!)
The festivities went on the next day on September 22, the day my weekly show would go on air -- 'Foorti Timeout with Elita'. While my producer, RJ Sarzina and I tried to operate the newly installed coffee machine in the Foorti kitchen, I could not help wondering, if it would be better to just boil up some water and make coffee in the old fashioned way, because clearly, the machine, which was installed to make lives easier, was simply taking up too much time.
Siam Ahmed, a young model and a lawyer in the making, joined us in our quest to make coffee, but in vain. He, however, stayed on and spoke to us about his experience while shooting for the Robi ad, which, fortunately, put him under the limelight.
“I have acted in eight commercials in total,” he says. “The Robi commercial actually required hard work and I was also quite dedicated the whole time.” A production of Runout, the storyline portrayed a mother crying for her lost young child at a railway platform, when Siam's character and his friend were about to board the last train before Eid holidays. Siam, however, paying no heed to the whistles of the moving train, dashed to the mother's rescue and found the little boy.
“I balance my time between work and studies quite well, because I like doing both,” adds Siam. “I want to be a successful lawyer, and at the same time I also have a deep interest in the visual media, and I don't want to miss out on either.”
The show ended with one of my all time favourites -- “Right here waiting for you” by Richard Marx. With that song, I took a trip down memory lane, reminiscing the days of the cassette tapes; purchasing blank tapes and recording on the double cassette players.
Don't forget to tune into 'Foorti Timeout with Elita' tonight, on Radio Foorti 88.0 FM at 9 pm!

Elita Karim is Feature Editor, The Daily Star and the 7th Floor Monster. She is always on a diet.