Radio Times

While driving on a lazy Sunday afternoon, when the traffic was tolerably less engaging, my wife and I were listening to the FM Radio, which was continuously belting out evergreen classic Hindi songs of a bygone era.  My mind was racing towards the golden times of the pre-FM Radio era; an era in which, Radio was the main source of entertainment for many of my generation.  I reminisce on the sweet memories of those times, which had been tucked away in some corner of my brain.

The Radio was an endless source of entertainment and information, in an era, much before the onslaught of Smart Televisions and High-speed Internet.  There was a clash of generations at home, vying for the limited Radio time!  While elders at home, were keen on listening to news broadcast or some other informative programmes such as panel discussions or the commentaries on current topics (e.g., Loksabha Sameekshe); however, the younger me (excuse me, folks, I was also young once:)) longed to tune into “Vividh Bharathi” on the MW (Medium Wave for the uninitiated) or “Radio Ceylon” on the SW (Short Wave, which is, AM / HF band).  Hearing the voice of Amin Sayani on Radio Ceylon was exciting; so was the fun in knowing, which Hindi film song was in the No.1 position that week or which song had been edged out of the top ten or twenty in the Binaca Geet Mala; this popular programme, was aired on for close to two decades, if I remember right.  We never missed listening to this programme, come what may.  The main topic of discussion among the inner circle of my friends’ group was the position of a particular Hindi song in Binaca Geet Mala that week!  

Cricket commentary on the Radio, excited all of us, irrespective of the generational gap (excepting elderly women in the family!).   Whenever there was Cricket commentary on, all other programmes on the Radio were rescheduled or cancelled.  We were so happy that the elderly and other Cricket-haters in the family were edged out of their Radio time; we, the Cricket lovers, had an upper hand over the entire Radio time for days on together; you see, those were the times of Test Cricket and not the instant Cricket, like one-dayers’ or twenty-twenty or IPL.

The ‘24x7’ programming concept was unknown, back then, in India (although some unfamiliar AM channels went on through the night, probably because of the time difference with those countries airing them).  None of the MW Radio stations were up before 6 AM in the morning (I am still fascinated by the Radio stations’ opening tune, which was later adopted by Doordarshan!) and were promptly shut down by 10 PM or so, after the final news bulletin of the day. 

After some years, when I was into my late teens, my interest in listening to Hindi film songs had started to flounder; something more fascinating had captured my imagination.  I had started enjoying listening to western pop music and rock music (compositions by ABBA, Boney-M, BeeGees, Brotherhood of Man, Beatles, Tina Charles, Donna Summer, Michael Jackson, etc., come to mind).  My favourite Radio station, then became, Radio Australia or Voice of America or BBC or Radio Kuwait or Radio Moscow, including so many unknown Radio stations that broadcast western popular music on AM band; incidentally, AIR, Bangalore also used to broadcast western music on Sundays between 12 noon and 12.30 PM, which aired my favourite western pop music based on the requests of the viewers.

How perspectives change!  My craze for western pop music those days, reminds me of the youngsters of the MTV generation, who endlessly watched the music videos on MTV or V channel, all times of the day and night.  The same glitzy, noisy videos which kept on repeating ad nausea, exasperated us no end; forgetting that, we too had created similar ruckus and irritated the elders of our generation, albeit, in a different era, with some bombarding western pop and rock music on Radio stations.  I can still hear my grandmother’s exasperated voice shouting from the kitchen asking me to stop the cacophonous blasphemy blaring on the Radio!

We had a huge Radio at home, named AMZEL.  The Radio was placed on a wooden stand, which was fixed to the wall, in the living room.  I think, this Radio brand was manufactured in collaboration with some US Company in the initial years.  This Radio was one of a kind; very few people had heard of this Radio brand, even then.  As a matter of interest, this Radio was manufactured by a factory named REMCO (Radio & Electrical Manufacturing Company), in which company my father worked as Accounts Controller.  This factory REMCO was later taken over by BHEL (Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited) and the manufacture of Radios and Transistors were abandoned; as the market demand for them had diminished. Even today, whenever I happen to pass the BHEL factory premises on the Mysore Road, memories of my late father envelop me and my eyes become moist; reminding me of the great times, I had with my dad.  This is a topic for another blog post.

Sometime later, came the revolutionary Japanese brand Transistors and the fancifully designed ‘Two-in-Ones’; Transistor Radio and Tape Recorder combined into one unit, which took the Indian market by storm.  The huge funky Panasonic brand of ‘Two-in-one’ comes to mind, which used to be mandatorily carried by people returning from Dubai and selling or gifting them to our people.

Coming back to the AMZEL Radio, I think, may be, my father got an employee discount on purchase of this Radio.  This Radio which was purchased in the year 1963 or thereabouts, served our family faithfully till the year 1980; I think, this item was disposed of as junk (as we did not know, what else to do with it), although still in fairly good working condition.  Sometime in late sixties, my father brought home a much smaller and compact version of the REMCO brand Transistor, manufactured by the same factory REMCO.  This Transistor also lasted until early eighties, when it was junked.  The Transistor had microprocessor circuit and switched on immediately whereas the Radio had some in-built valves and took time to switch on; that was the only difference I could make out in their functioning; being a non-technical person.  The REMCO Transistor had an in-built aerial and was mainly used in our family, especially when the Cricket commentary was on.  We had a choice of Radio and a Transistor in our home, which brought down the friction with in the family.

The most popular Radio of the time, which I am referring to, was the Murphy Radio.  A cute baby holding a finger to his mouth, was the brand ambassador for the Murphy Radio, which was so very popular, those days.  Jogging my memory, is a huge hoarding, advertising for the Murphy Radio, on the Brigade Road in Bangalore; where a distributor for the brand had their main show room.

During those pre-FM, Radio era, if we loved a song and obsessed to listen to that particular song, we had to wait for days on end, to get another opportunity to listen to the song; much depended on the whims and fancies of the Radio stations on the repeat cycle of a particular song.  I would like to think, that the prolonged wait deepens the pining for the song and keeps them fresh and evergreen in our minds; unlike today when we can watch/listen to any song we wish on the YouTube and you can replay them any number of times (you see, I have realized that downloading a song is a total waste of time, effort and phone/computer memory).  So much water has flown, since then.  There is no longer the obsession or fun in listening to any composition of the present day, Hindi or otherwise. Technology has taken over our lives, we are less ready to appreciate and enjoy what makes us happy.