Radio musings

Radio musings 

Radio did not appeal to me even when I saw it the first time, perhaps at my parents’ home next-door. I lived with an aunt of my father who never bought a radio as all kinds of people filled her sprawling estate to entertain her. I was too young to worry about songs or news or whatever else radio relayed those days. I had my friends, marbles, a cricket bat, my manservant and aunt who doted on me. My elder brother playing his favorite songs loudly on the radio, much to the chagrin of everyone around; is the only memory of the large and ugly device I have. 

Radio entered my life surreptitiously during India’s wars with China and Pakistan when I was a boy scout. No one really explained to me why they were all huddled around a radio listening to the endless newscasts and random patriotic songs. At 11 and 12, no one really cares about who bombed whom. Patriotism had not yet entered my young psyche. I remained indifferent to the radio, by now beloved of the rest of the family. 

I entered college innocently as if it was a school and quickly forged a friendship with two equally innocent lads, innocence being the essence of any friendship. Both these friends had transistor radios at home; large, ugly, brown leather covered. At one home, it blared filmi songs and at the other cricket commentary. I spent all my waking hours between these two homes thus had no scope to escape radio. I never prospered with the sense of cricket, but film songs took firm hold of my young mind as I took notice of the existence of radio in my life. 

Radio became my friend, philosopher, and guide when I went for my MBA in Ahmadabad and stayed in a hostel. Soon, Chatur Patel joined me as a room partner. He hailed from a rural farming family of South Gujarat, strongly muscled, and even more strongly willed, Chatur Patel never stopped smiling. His smile and rural, earthy sense of wisdom kept us going with tea and biscuits when our meager assistantship got delayed in paperwork. We cycled long distances to see movies and dropped each other at the bus station for trips home. He got a king-size transistor radio from home that filled our large room with old Bollywood songs, making us feel more homesick. 

By this time, I became keen to gain a radio of my own but had to wait till I got my first salary. I remember buying the first radio from Sales-India on Ashram road, Ahmadabad for Rs. 250. I rode home on cycle 8 kilometers, precariously balancing the radio on the pillion. Radio Ceylon and Binaca Geetmala, Vividh Bharti, and superlative newsreaders became my favorite entertainment for over a decade until television came along to destroy the peace and privacy of my being. 

Gradually I moved away from it and reunited with radio after television lost its charm. Going back to the radio was like going back to my roots; calming and comforting. 

Today, my wife and I have radios in every room and bathroom, and we spend hours listening to the radio programs, switching off the television with the disdain it deserves. I enjoy a vast range of FM/AM radio programs throughout the day and much of the night. I go to sleep with the radio on, 100.07 FM playing till 2 am. 

I have finally fallen in love with the radio.