Happy birthday, Radio!

Do I speak into this thingrdquo Gandhiji enquired staring at the microphone There he was in 1931 England attempting a radio broadcast for America Faced with the newish contraption he floundered wondering how it received and relayed his speech to crowdsTechnosceptic then the Father of the Nation soon realised broadcast was a sharp weapon to spread the battle cry Unlike the press the illiterate masses accessed radio widely Consummate communicator that he was Gandhi grew aware it was essential for him to become increasingly media savvyFlorist Kantibhai Sukhadia discuss daily favourite programmes heard on their Murphy radio and transistorThings kickstarted before his gauche tryst with the mike In June 1923 the Radio Club of Bombay made an inaugural broadcast The Indian Broadcasting Company was created on July 23 1927 All India Radio AIR launched six years later in 1936 with Czech emigre pianist and founder of the Bombay Chamber Music Society Walter Kaufmann immortalising its signature strain based on raga Shivaranjini Smack amid World War II the Raj desperately sought to squash opposition swelling with the Quit India movement of August 1942 Print media was gagged other communication channels were censored radio spouted no more than innocuously general bulletins But mottos like ldquoKarenge ya marenge Do or dierdquo spurred a simple college girl to embark on a clandestine mission A secret radio station was rigged by Usha Mehta and her supporters It conveyed antiimperialist messages via a portable set assembled by mechanical engineers sympathetic to the causeAmeen Sayani at his recording studio with Zahida Bhushan Madhubalarsquos sister Pic courtesyRajil SayaniCongress Radiomdashalso dubbed Ghost Radio or Freedom Radiomdashcrackled forth on August 27 1942 from a Chowpatty topfloor residence From atrocities perpetrated in Ashti and Chimur in Maharashtra to the Chittagong raid events were fearlessly featured Ushaben announced mainly in Hindi Ram Manohar Lohia Achyutrao Patwardhan and Coomi Dastur read English versionsldquoThis is the Congress Radio calling on 4234 metres from somewhere in Indiardquo the underground missives echoed provocatively Courting arrest the conspirators dodged police patrol vans searching for their elusive signal for three months They turned to Chicago Radio pioneered by Gianchand Motwane from Larkana in Sindh and his son Nanik The firm specialising in radio and loudspeaker equipment was built on the bravery of those stalwarts who withstood whiplashes on ice in jail at the hands of the threatened EnglishSports commentary legend AFS Talyarkhan transmitting his trenchant take on a match in his heydayBy 1947 significantly six stations functioned from Bombay Calcutta Delhi Madras Lucknow and Tiruchirappalli Named Akashvani voice from the sky since 1956 AIR is among the largest global broadcasters with 99 per cent population covered by 420 radio stations in 23 languages and 179 dialectsThe British left Ceylon powerful shortwave transmitters belonging to Mountbattenrsquos South East Asia Command Colombo picked them for commercial radio in Sinhalese English Tamil and Hindi Ameen Sayanirsquos show Binaca Geetmala on Radio Ceylon offered the most mellifluous salutation ldquoBeheno aur bhaiyyohelliprdquo he warmly intoned for the programme proving the perfect model for a Bollywood hits countdown Orange radio flickers seemed to blaze brighter at 8 pm midweek with his cheery pitchperfect adaab ldquoMain aapka dost Ameen Sayani bol raha hoon aur aap sun rahe hain Binaca Geetmalardquo Bombay Presidency Radio Club at Colaba from where the countryrsquos first broadcast went out in June 1923 PicBipin KokateI amp B Minister BV Keskarrsquos dour 1952 ban on film songs caused AIR to slide At that point Daniel Molina an American in Bombay opportunely established Radio Advertising Services Sayanirsquos elder brother Hamid ran its production wing As Keskarrsquos clout waned AIR welcomed popular formats with the Vividh Bharati network from October 3 1957ldquoMinsters and bureaucrats have a frighteningly myopic vision What gave anyone the right to believe that shastriya sangeet only was what the people neededrdquo poses Jawhar Sircar former CEO of Prasar Bharati alluding to Keskarrsquos sweeping edictGerson da Cunha extreme right at St Xavierrsquos College with the Fr Llorens Trophy for his role in Saint Joanmdasha performance he rushed from to give an AIR talk Pic CourtesyGerson Da CunhaAccording to him Bollywood has always represented Indian popular culture better than others ldquoBombayrsquos film industry beat Calcutta as it had none of the snootiness of Bong intellectualism which prides itself on being avantgarde like the French Bombay symbolised a more embracive inclusive attitude The nononsense but funloving city had no hangups and was not choosy or insular It never imposed any lsquocutoffrsquo level of intellect on the rest of the population What the culture vultures forget or deny is that Hindi films and their songs were a supra language that united Indians who spoke different languages The lyrics whether Shailendrarsquos or Gulzarrsquos articulated a common and collective mood Bombay ruled the waves and chose not to be shut in the isolation of auditoriumsrdquoChampioning wider autonomy for media practitioners Sircar observed in On Stage magazine ahead of the Jamshed Bhabha Memorial Lecture that he presented at the NCPA in August 2019 ldquoIndia will forever be the land of heroes and songs Keskar had decided that the information and entertainment lifeline of the nation would not air Bollywood songs as he thought them vulgar and westernised and hoped instead that his country would begin to appreciate highbrow classical music This is when Binaca Geetmala came up as a metaphor of revolt Even Western classical music was edged out I know of unverified correspondence between Nehru and Keskar wherein the latter refused to play Western classical music calling it colonial and Nehru retorted lsquoDo you doubt my patriotismrsquordquoBrilliantly conjuring visual images sports buffs related to AFS Bobby Talyarkhanrsquos polished style and crisp delivery raised games reportage to a class act ldquoWriting took me to broadcastingrdquo said the doyen of sports commentary who contributed The Column for this paper in the 1980s and had initiated the countryrsquos first sports page at Free Press Journal His unique signoff for the Take It From Me series has enduring recallmdashldquoDo you get me Steverdquo When I interviewed the legend on Sunday afternoons at the CCI just before his death in July 1990 he stressed ldquoNot cricket alone please Football fans in the east hockey lovers elsewhere should remember merdquo AFSTrsquos field debut anchored a 1934 Quadrangular match in Esplanade Maidan Averse to mike sharing he often talked for six hours nonstop ldquoBobbyrsquos bladder is as strong as his blubberrdquo quipped editor Frank MoraesAn introduction to eugenics campaigner Marie Stopes by AIR boss KB Sethna in the Taj lift proved embarrassing ldquoWhat do you broadcast aboutrdquo she asked AFST ldquoBallsrdquo he answered Hurriedly adding ldquoand batsrdquo Dr Stopes severely handed him her book on birth control ldquoIf the dear lady visited the hotel chemist the hotgospeller of family planning would see more material aids of an intimate nature than found on the Rue Blanche in the days which were all nightsrdquo he observed While journalism led AFST to broadcasting the twin highs of theatre and radio gripped Gerson da Cunha a generation after Juggling them was equal pleasure and pressure for the St Xavierrsquos boy in the late 1940s Barely did the curtain close on him playing Squire Baudricourt in a Dramatic Club presentation of Bernard Shawrsquos Saint Joan he rushed for a radio reading and was unmissed till his name was called for winning the Fr Llorens Trophy for actingldquoThe medium had an important presence in my childhood Devoted to the radiogram my father jotted lists of favourites He kept waking hours to catch the BBCrsquos Daventry programmes There were music shows too accompanied by the German anthem and sometimes the dreadful Nazi onerdquo says da Cunha humming faint bars of the former over chai and cheese toastDa Cunha credits AIR station director Victor Paranjoti for enthusing him about radio and Adi Marzban as a great inspiration through years of helming English programming with Derek JeffereismdashldquoRadio appealed to the little showoff residing in us I was deeply involved with the station Theatre directors watching me try to fit the two interests together knew I wouldnrsquot attend some rehearsalsrdquo Filing AIR stories he had some outstanding encounters in the 1950s When Nehru landed at Santa Cruz airport from a UN Security Council meeting the rookie reporter was ready with weighty questions including the statesmanrsquos view on the Suez Crisis ldquoA tired figure appeared at the plane door At the base of the gangway I managed asking lsquoA good flight Prime Minsterrsquo And could feel his fatigue as he put his hand on mine saying lsquoYes it was wonderfulrsquordquo ldquoWorking on a transmission of Yehudi Menuhinrsquos concert with the Bombay Symphony Orchestra on the Excelsior Cinema stage I marvelled at the sounds his Strad produced Foolishly requesting the most famous violinist on earth for an autograph I was touched he wrote lsquoTo Gerson da Cunha in memory of our joint eveningrsquordquo Despite television beaming from 1972 and FM broadcasting from 1977 radio remains the common manrsquos constant companion In Kalbadevi optometrist Hemant Samani and florist Kantibhai Sukhadia sit at neighbouring shops opposite Chandan Wadi Tuning in daylong between customers the friends faithfully exchange views on favourite shows ldquoAmeh radio paachhal paagal chhaiyyemdashWersquore mad about radiordquo says Samani ldquoMy parents wouldnrsquot miss KL Saigal songs and I was an AFST and Vijay Merchant fan During the 1965 IndoPak war my father switched on BBC Following news of Lahore and Rawalpindi he insisted lsquoNo hearing onesided accountsrsquordquoToday more than ever a toxically polarised populace could use such objectivityAuthorpublisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore BombayYou can reach her at mehermarfatiamiddaycomwwwmeher marfatiacom