VINTAGE RADIO SOCIETY OF INDIA
Catching Waves Of The Past
Catching Waves Of The Past
Two films being screened at a city museum this week show how Bollywood music and the radio are inextricably woven into the fabric of Indian entertainment
The penultimate scene in a 1955 documentary called Realm of Sound shows the well-to-do patriarch of a family returning home bearing a gift. He lays the huge cardboard box on a table in the living room as his wife and kids gather excitedly around.
They are all smiles as they collectively unwrap what's inside. And out comes a massive radio, or a "magic box", as the narrator calls it. The man instructs his older daughter to plug the gadget in, as his son opens a window further for better signal. Meanwhile, the impatient younger daughter tries turning a knob, unable to hold herself, but her mother pushes her hand away saying, "Haath kyun laga rahe ho? Kharab ho jayega." So the patriarch - positively beaming with pride by now - takes it upon himself to find a station playing Hindustani classical music, and the film ends with the shot of a prodigiously talented sitar player sitting in an All India Radio studio, his young fingers flying across the fretboard with dexterous speed.
~ Alokesh Gupta ~
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