Earliest Memories - Part 2 - The Radio

THE RADIO

The little boy’s family did not have a radio. They were expensive to own then. There was a license fee to pay every year too. The family that owned their house owned one. There were a few others in the neighbourhood too who were proud owners of a radio set. Perhaps to accommodate the older, nearly deaf persons in their family OR as a way of helping their poorer neighbours, they all usually played their radios loud. The little boy could hear many radios playing – usually the same radio station. There were just a couple locally. One could also apparently pick up the radio station from Pakistan, just across the border. People were afraid to turn on the Pakistani radio stations loudly in those days, for fear of being considered traitors, even though they had been listening to them for ages. With a common language, culture, common music and even common musicians, people on both sides listened to each other’s music, watch each other’s movies. Of course, the more expensive, shortwave radio sets could pick up stations from across the world.  News always blared at the usual time around dinner at night and at certain times during the day. Most listened to the news in Hindi. Some listened to English news.  The Indian news readers all had a sombre, serious voice that was very familiar and well known.

There were a couple of famous movies that were released around that time. One had a story set in the war between India and China and was titled “Haqeeqat” (pronounced “Hakeekat”).  The other was “Teen Devian” (Three ladies). The songs from those were very popular.  Everyone would sing along. The little boy picked them up. He and his sister would go out and hear them, sing along and come back home to show-off to their mother. His sister did not seem too interested in singing.

He remembered:  Adults seemed to gather around at news time and listen to every word and discuss. He could not understand why they were so interested in that. He preferred to listen to more fun stuff. He liked the songs from the movies, especially, the ones sung by Kishore Kumar or Mohammad Rafi.  He loved the songs from the movie about the war. They were so good that he believed ‘war’ meant that there will be new popular hit songs written and sung!

He particularly loved the song “Khwaab HoTum Ya Koi Hakeekat” which was a big hit with people all across the country. He absolutely loved it and would sing along, not quite understanding the language. He would sing “AAhha Tumya..”  in reasonable tune, and his mum would smile happily and applaud him. He would show-off to his father, when he was home. He was often asked to sing in front of guests. Everyone smiled, clapped and he felt great, but also a bit put-on-the-spot. He knew radios were supposed to be very expensive and did not think they would ever own one.

The grown-ups in the neighbourhood families would tell his mother, “Your son will learn our language before you do! Look he is already singing in it!!”

He remembered:  He would wait outside the door of his room, in the courtyard to hear the songs more clearly and better. His mother would constantly try to get him into the house and out of the way of the host family, out from the cold or out from danger that might be coming soon. He could not explain very well why he preferred to stand outside and would keep trying to go out at odd times, even when he woke up in the middle of the night. Sometimes, during the day, he would open a window that had metal cross-bars across it, to listen to a radio playing from across the street in the daytime. At night time, he knew opening windows was prohibited!

Looking at the little boy’s persistent desire to go out and listen to songs more clearly, even in the night or seeing him put his ears to the windows, his parents discussed this issue. Then one day, to his and his sister’s surprise, a big, brand new radio set arrived at home. It was of a well-known famous brand. It was a set that was the top of the line in the models they had for sale. It cost a small fortune - many months’ wages!!  It had electronic valves  -Transistor radios were not common or unheard of, for the common folk then. Their new radio had a magic blue/green ‘eye’, that would slowly light up and a bar that would shrink when tuned to a radio station. The sound was rich and sonorous. It could receive shortwave signals too. They could listen to ‘foreign’ stations too. Everyone talked about “BBC”. They could listen to songs most the day, whenever there was electric power on. The little boy was absolutely thrilled. The first time he heard his favourite song “Khwaab Ho Tumya..”  he was stunned at the quality and closeness of sound. He would imagine there were little artists inside singing or talking. His parents watched his delight with much happiness that he could not understand, until he himself grew up and became a parent. He did not know then, that his parents had gone to such lengths and expense to indulge his young passion.  They never told him why they decided to make this one big impulse buy. This was unusual for them, normally being very thrifty having grown up in circumstances where they barely had enough money to scrape though. He found out about this much later, when he was a grown man – considering that they had decided to stay and stick out the upcoming war in Amritsar, his parents did not want the regret of seeing their children do without experiencing the joys of listening to their favourite songs on their own radio, if their lives were to be cut short due to the war!



Copyright  (c) Kannan Narayanamurthy 2014
All rights reserved