When radio was my favourite toy

MY maternal grand-father was a medical professional, but his favorite hobby was listening to radio in his spare time. Three years after All India Radio made its debut, in 1939 he bought his first radio, a made-in-England GEC three band shortwave/ medium-wave receiver. In 1942, he bought another radio, a five-band Holland-made Philips piece and gifted the older GEC radio to my mother.

When I was four, the government radio expanded in East Punjab under the name All India Radio Jullundur-Amritsar. On the auspicious occasion of the Guru Nanak Dev birth anniversary in 1948, my mother woke me up early, gave me a bath, clad me in a new set of clothes and asked me to put the radio on. I handled the radio reluctantly, but succeeded in tuning in to All India Radio Jullundur-Amritsar. Some very enchanting voices started reciting Gurbani direct from the Golden Temple. I enjoyed it thoroughly. From that moment, my shyness with the device called the radio ended and I started fiddling with it like a modern child plays with his toys.

Attractive toys available these days were a rarity during those days, the family radio was my most favourite toy. It had two shortwave bands, the first one had the inter-continental bands, including 13, 16, 19, 25, 31 and 41 meter wavelength broadcast segments, and the second had 49, 60 and the tropical bands of 75, 90 and 120 meters. The medium-wave band consisted of 200 meters to 550 meters. There was no FM in this radio. My favorite was the international shortwave band. I used to move the needle from one frequency to the other in a never-ending search for newer radio stations. Radio Ceylon (Colombo) was my most favorite station. The BBC was my father's choice for news. My other favourite stations were Radio Pakistan Karachi, Radio Iran Zahidan (Urdu) and Radio Kabul. All these stations played Hindi film music. On medium-wave, during the day time only the Punjab-based radio stations Lahore and Jullundur could be heard. At night I could pick up distant stations like Calcutta and Bombay too. The instrumental music played at Bangalore and Madras stations was mesmerising and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I must admit that my radio was instrumental in developing appreciation of good music in me. At a young age I could admire the beauty of Hindustani and Karnataka music. Begum Akhtar, Hira Bai Barodekar, M.S. Subhalakshmi and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan became my favourite maestros. Lata Mangeshkar and Talat Mahmood had always been dear to my heart. They touched my emotions, every time I listened to them on this vintage beauty.

This radio had been shuttling frequently between Kapurthala and New Delhi, by train and by road, without of course its packing box, which was lost during the forties. These never-ending journeys battered the radio a whole lot and in 1966, when it was brought to Chandigarh, a few days before Punjab's trifurcation, it developed a fatal defect, which could never be repaired and the vintage beauty had to be replaced. But we kept it placed quite prominently, in full view of the visitors.

In the 1980s, a radio repairman offered to repair it. But, at his shop, some collector liked its unique shape and configuration. After that we never saw it. The radio is long gone, but its memory will linger in my mind for ever along with the taste of good music it inculcated in me.

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