By Nikhil Taneja
Imran Khan makes his debut as RJ, and plays rare gems of music

It started off as an exchange of `tweets' on the social website, Twitter, and ended up as Imran Khan's debut as RJ on 94.3 Radio One. It was a memorable show mostly, because of the stunning music that Khan dished out, and partly because it was him playing the songs.

Khan's debut as RJ happened by chance. When he mentioned on his Twitter account that he loved RJ Malini Agarwal's show on radio, she invited him over. And Khan, who claims to "LOVE radio", was all for it. "He had just one condition," laughs RJ Malini. "He wanted the show to be called Pirate Radio because earlier, pirate radio stations would rebel against the establishment and played outlawed music. Imran's analogy was of being locked in a studio for three hours, playing the kind of music he liked."

Among the 30 songs he played, 25 were his favourites. Since quite a few were unavailable at the studio, Khan took his Mac along, so he wouldn't miss out on the perfect playlist. It included rare gems, usually found in the collection of music connoisseurs.

RJ Malini confessed, "Even I hadn't heard 80 per cent of the songs. It showed how passionate he is about music. Instead of briefly speaking about a song, he related a memory connected with it."Each song had a story. He may have heard one when he first fell in love, or when he was out with friends and it was playing on the car stereo, or maybe when he was going through a rough patch... Stories that forged an emotional connect with listeners.