It was September of 1939 and the British government had officially declared war against Nazi Germany. At that time I was an eight year old boy going through the joys and pangs of growing up. My father was posted as the Resident Magistrate at the then small town of Batala in the Gurdaspur district of pre-Partition Punjab. As a Provincial Civil Service officer under the British government, he was expected to keep himself informed of the day to day developments in the ongoing Second World War. Since the newspapers provided only limited and often one-sided information, he was also interested in listening to the news broadcast by the All India Radio, BBC London and other foreign radio stations.
In those days wireless radio sets were more like a status symbol, owned only by officials or the privileged citizens and that too after obtaining a license from the government. So after careful evaluation of various available brands and discussions with his colleagues, father ordered the latest model of a HMV (His Master’s Voice) radio set imported from Holland.
We were all very excited on the day when the radio was delivered at our bungalow with some fuss and fanfare. Outwardly, it looked like a large wooden box with a large rectangular screen and several knobs and in the front. As I watched the elaborate process of setting up of the radio, I was fascinated by the installation of the overhead ariel (antenna) on the roof top. Two bamboo poles were fixed at both ends of the roof and a long wire was tied between them, with round crystals on each side. Then a lead wire was drawn from one end of the ariel wire and the other end was taken down through the ventilator into father’s bed room where it was connected at the back of the radio set.
After father returned home in the evening, everybody gathered around the radio with bated breath for listening to the inaugural broadcast. As father switched on the power, the large rectangular dial in front was lit up brightly, showing four wave bands to be selected by moving an arrow shaped needle up and down. But the most attractive and intriguing feature of the dial was a circular magic eye at the centre with a green light which flickered around as the tuning needle slowly moved over the marked meter band, making queer noises. And as soon as any station got tuned in, the magic eye suddenly turned fully green and we could hear clear sound emanating from the loud speaker on the left side of the radio set.
While the main broadcasting station of All India Radio was in New Delhi, the most powerful and popular station covering North India was Lahore. It’s Urdu and Pujabi programmes were very popular. But for father the main focus was the daily news. So after dinner every night, father would first listen to the AIR English news bulletin at 9 pm. Even today I can hear the deep resonant voice which we all heard with rapt attention: “This is All India Radio. Here is the news read by Melville de Mello”. This was followed by the BBC news bulletin at 9.30 pm which required careful tuning into the short wave 19 or 25 meter bands. The broadcast began with a time signal of three beeps, followed by the sound of the Big Ben striking five in the evening in London.
During the summer, when we slept out in the open back yard of the bungalow, the radio was also brought out and connected by long wire to a plug point in the verandah. Father had got a special table of the exact size made for the radio so that it could be placed anywhere. Sometimes, under the starry nights, we would all listen in rapt attention to some radio plays by eminent writers like Imitiaz Ali Taj and Rajendra Singh Bedi broadcast from Lahore which had become very popular at that time. On Sunday mornings I eagerly looked forward to listening to the children’s programme from AIR Delhi. I vividly remember the day when, during one of our occasional visits to Delhi, father took me to the All India Radio studios on Parliament Street to attend the live broadcast of the programme. Right from that age I was fascinated by the magic world of radio broadcasting which in many ways influenced me later in my forays into creative writing.
The grand old HMV radio set remained an inseparable member of our household and shared our travails for over more than two decades, including the tragic Partition of the country. Even when father was confined to bed after a stroke, he continued with his daily ritual of listening to the news every night, till he passed away in 1967. By that time the radio had become irreparable and had to given away for nothing.
Now as I grow old, trying to adjust to the ultra modern high-tech life of instant connectivity, I am often reminded of those days when we patiently waited for the magic eye to get connected to the world beyond time and space.
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