Memories, once encapsulated on cassettes, can now be retrieved on flash drives. This has brought a range of prospective customers to the Rainbow Center in Karachi, who queue up to convert cassette videos of parents and relatives who have long since passed. Seeing their loved ones come alive brings tears to their eyes.
It is a busy afternoon when we reach Zahid Noor’s shop in Rainbow Center. Ali is one of the customers. He has come from Garden, Karachi, to get his father’s wedding video transferred from VHS to USB. “My father passed away eight years ago,” he told JB Connects, adding, “I had a few old cassettes of his wedding at home. Today, I’ve come to convert my VCR tapes so that my old data can be transferred onto a USB.” For Ali, these cassettes are very precious because they contain memories of his father and mother, whom he wants to introduce to his children.
Muhammad Zahid Noor receives dozens of such customers, both male and female, from all over Sindh. “The younger generation is coming to us because they have old movies of their loved ones and want to convert them,” says Zahid. Most of his customers are young people. They also bring videos of their own birthday celebrations.
“People also bring old Pakistani PTV shows and films that were never released for some reason. They get them converted and then upload them on YouTube,” says Zahid. “Noor Jehan and Jalal Chandio still hold a special place in Urdu and Sindhi music and VHS cassettes of both are brought to us for conversion.”
From VHS to CD, and DVD to USB, Muhammad Zahid Noor has witnessed four eras of preserving life’s beautiful moments. He says the video quality improves to 1080p after conversion. But with the rapid advancements in technology, Zahid Noor believes that USBs will eventually become a thing of the past. He remains curious about what the next groundbreaking invention will be.
No matter what the next phase, it is certain that the process of capturing life’s precious moments will be passed down from one generation to the next.