Grandfather’s Radio

As I have time and again informed in this blog, I tend to classify generations  based on the media one grew up with. My mother grew up in the age of Radio. I also remember the Radio faintly. It was the only source of entertainment at home until I was 8 years old.  I still remember the baritone of the news reader Saroj Narayanaswamy  in the All India Radio with distinct punctuations.  Those days the radio jockeys of the day were the superstars. My hook to the radio was the sports section of the news bulletin. Especially when India was on at Cricket tour in countries like England and West Indies, the matches would mostly end-up in night . The newspaper next day would obviously not carry the latest update. So  I used to rely on the radio with bated breathe to know the result. On my summer trips to my Grandfather’s village , the radio box (one with the vaccum tubes) held a center stage in the hall. On Sundays, the All India Radio used to relay the voicecast of the Tamil films. My aunts and uncles , used to sit in a circle surrounding  the Radio box hearing it out with pin drop silence. In addition the dramas produced by the AIR were also pretty popular. I also liked the advertisements that the Radios ran…while the ads if relayed today, might sound amateurish, it stuck to my mind…what else does an advertiser want!

And then the villain came ! Enter….. the Television – the Idiot Box and father/mother of all modern day distractions…In 1984,  when the Los Angeles Olympics happened , my father thought it was the most opportune moment and bought the TV…albeit a colour one . It came with 8 channels although  all we had was just one TV Channel ,the Doordarshan. There was a television antenna , an aluminum reception device that was required. We watched in awe the excerpts of the Los Angeles Olympics …the biggest controversy was “Did Zola Budd trip Mary Decker intentionally in the 3000 m race? “  . Also we were amazed to see the Los Angeles city itself during the marathon race, the criss-cross of the roads zoomed from a top angle of the camera on a  Helicopter tracking the runners. Next time I went to visit grandfather, the television had sidelined the radio in villages as well.  Only that the antenna was like perched on a pole of over 12 ft to capture the disturbance free signal. Whenever the TV images reduced in clarity , one of my uncle used to run to the house-top to turn the antenna pole until the signal clarity emerged.

The Television grew in complexity from then on…Satellite television emerged …there were a plethora of TV channels to choose upon…Non-stop news Channels, Soap Operas with melodrama slugfest , Non-stop Sports channels,Non-stop music….the problem I have these days is  the “Non-stop”ness.  Suddenly, the once in a week song-show became 24-hour ….once in a week film telecast became 24-hour … the suspense , the wait , the rarity I feel is  lost…and as I felt , I lost out on the edge-of-seat wait to hear about the result of the cricket match from the distant land. 

Do you feel that way too? Or is this all trivial nostalgia that is an indication of my ageing?