One of the biggest regrets of my life is that I have not listened to the Vividh Bharti for decades now. Such has been the invasion of the television in our lives that we have voluntarily surrendered to its designs. Sitting in a couch, staring at a flickering screen while those unrelenting enemies, fat, cholesterol, triglycerides, unburnt-calories, Vitamin-D-deficiency, varicose veins, and flabby-belly ceaselessly shooting at you, has been a lost battle for good health.
The laws of physics are mercilessly unfriendly. A visual must be viewed directly since the line of sight is but a straight line. The potato is therefore necessarily bound to the couch. Sound waves, on the other hand waft and swirl around the house, from room-to room, in you garden and onto you balcony. The radio uncomplainingly sits in a corner, a most tolerant and liberal device not seeking to arrest you into confinement yet regaling you while you read the newspaper, sip your morning cuppa, walk on you treadmill, brush and shave or even take a shower. It works on your mind and not on your eyeballs. It doesn't enslave you, it befriends you. It captivate you, yet doesn’t take you captive. Human mind, the radio knows, is a powerful receiver. It can process multiple inputs, all at once. So, you can listen to the news while you drive, tap the table to Kishore Kumar while you eat your porridge or play with your children while the radio entertains you faithfully unconcerned with what you are doing.
So, whether it was a lazy summer afternoon or a cold winter night, you could be snuggled indoors and let the tuner beat the blues for you. The radio was a democratic device that entertained no matter where you were in the house. It enchanted the children, the Dad and the Mom, the housemaid and the passerby alike. If you wanted to enjoy a primetime serial, though the term serial was not invented then, you could curl up in warm blankets and listen to the Hawa Mahal. Or you could tune in to Radio Ceylon and enjoy the Binaca Geetmala, the weekly "award" rating of music that could easily outdo the glitzy Grammy Awards function. The best part of it was that the compère Amin Sayani came out tops every Wednesday, beating the songs that he played. The Vividh Bharti was the station, we didn't have channels then, that kept the love of music alive across generations through special programmes like Chhaya Geet and special programs for Fauji Bhais. Does Jhumri Talaiyya still exists on the planet earth? Let me find out next time I tune in. Raju, Babli and Pinki must have grown up now. Their postcard requests were read out as if they were personal messages from long lost friends.
Tuning in to obscure and distant radio stations gave greater pleasure than actually visiting London, Peking or Washington DC. The Aha Moment of locking into the clearest reception of the BBC or the Voice of America was as rewarding as a grandmother's success in threading a needle without glasses. The modern avatar, the FM Radio, comes close to the old faithful AM, but the latter still wins because it served you, without aerials and antennae, in basements and on sky-scrapers, in the hills and forests, on sea beaches and on high seas.
I have missed you, Radio! The #WorldRadioDay just told me that I have missed a lot in these years. I promise to make up for it. #ThankYouRadio.
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