Back in the old days, even owning a radio was a matter of pride and until the advent of television, radio was the prime source of entertainment in India.
The status symbol of Indian homes were having their own vintage antique design of an Mullard valve or Johnson Radio imported from UK or Murphy valve radio, Philco, Marconi, Telefunken, Grundig with wooden design, or latest HMV or Philips were a priceless collection at our old village home, since the days of Radio Club of Bombay was established its first radio transmission in 1923 and thereafter India’s first official radio station was opened in Delhi in 1936.
All these radio clubs got merged into one, establishing All India Radio (Akashvani, a sanskit word meaning voice from the sky /heaven was first used in the context of radio, by M V Gopalaswami in 1936, after setting up India’s first private radio station at his Mysore residence) on June 8, 1936.
The signature tune of All India Radio was composed by Walter Kaufmann,
In the 50’s, Minister of IB, Dr B V Kaskar put a ban on broadcast of Hindi film songs on AIR, thus Radio Ceylon became immensely popular with famous Binaca Geetmala and Amin Sayani as its first anchor in Hindi. The first single program revolutionized the entertainment & marketing industry in India, until then it was just a News broadcaster.
The Princely State of Travancore established its first Malayalam broadcasting station at Thiruvananathapuram on 30th September 1937 with 2 hours broadcasting on Friday evenings when His Highness Sri Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma installed a transmitter at his capital city on 12th March 1943 and after independence, when the Princely State of Travancore has joined in Indian Union, the Travancore Broadcasting station also merged with AIR on 1st April 1950
Almost all of us have memories, ranging from vivid to vague, of listening to the signature ‘akashavani’ jingle at the break of dawn.
Most popular Malayalam language radio programs were Poonthenaruvi film songs and Ormacheppu (old is Gold film songs). Remembering T N Gopinathan Nair, Veeran, Nagavalli R S Kurup, the stalwarts of Malayalam Radio.
Remembering UN Radio established in 1946, World Radio Day is being celebrated by UNESCO on this day, 13 th Feb.
– Jaikrushna Puranik
