Vividh Bharati

I heard today (13 Feb) was Radio day and thought of posting some of my memories with Radio. When I was young we used to have a Murphy Radio which used to look almost like the the one below (credits:www.radiomuseum.org).

My grandfather used to have a Philips radio. I later learned my dad and grandfather exchanged their radios and Philips was the one which used to belong to us. My grandfather used to have a transistor as well. Whenever I visited him I used to carry the transistor everywhere.

The morning times Vivish Bharatiyin Varathaga Oliparapu was very famous. When we were getting ready to school or on the way to school we used to hear the jingle, songs and advertisements.

When we moved to a two in one I remember recording songs from radio into an audio cassette.

At nights around 900 PM or so they used to telecast a drama which used to be followed by Vilambaratharar valangum nigalchi which was nothing but advertisements for tamil movies. They used to telecast dialogues and songs from new movies. I remember listening to Agni Natchathiram, Roja movie advertisements and dialogues. The last one I remember is Roja. The songs by AR Rahman sounded very different.

Sunday 4 PM they used to telecast movie songs in Chennai station 1 and I think there used to be a drama as well. Listening to radio dramas used to be very interesting. Sometimes they used to telecast Olichithiram which is nothing but a complete tamil movie slightly edited.

Now we can listen to any song any time we want but the magic delivered by the Radio is missing.