The channel that mesmerised India

Launched on October 2, 1957, some of Vividh Bharati radio channel’s programmes are now 62 years old, marvels MANOJ SORAL

On a cold November morning, in a tiny lane of the ancient Patan Pol locality in Kota, Rajasthan 19year-old Vidyaratan was seated on a chair in his living room, sipping hot tea from a kullad. It was a very common routine across India’s northern belt during the winter, especially in the year 1957, when one could buy a load of kullads for a few annas. What was not so common was the large Ecko radio sitting beside him, near a large window. It had a big light on the top right corner, which glowed green when the radio was on. Vidyaratan gingerly turned the huge knobs on the lower part of the radio until he had tuned in to India’s latest radio service, Vividh Bharti, which had commenced only a month ago on Gandhi Jayanti.

An ‘announcer’, the predecessor of today’s DJ, was telling the listeners which song they were about to hear. Vidyaratan could not contain his excitement. It was a song he just could not have enough of – ‘Ho udein jab jab zulfein teri, kawaariyon ka dil machle…’ from the latest blockbuster film, ‘Naya Daur’. The film, starring Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala had released on Independence Day that year and was still drawing huge crowds.

The same evening, Mahesh Korgaonkar in Mumbai’s BDD Chawl in Worli also tuned in to Vividh Bharati. And the moment he heard the opening music of his favourite programme, he called his wife to sit beside him. It was time for the family to listen to another riveting story on ‘Hawa Mahal’. Just like the Hindi film songs, this was also a programme that was rapidly drawing an ever growing number of people to Vividh Bharati from across the country.

Just a decade earlier, while leaving the country in 1947, many British politicians and officers stationed here had disdainfully declared that there was no India – it was just a motley gathering of different countries with an array of cultures and languages, and it could never be a single country. In 1952, film songs were banned on All India Radio because the then I&B Minister BV Keskar felt that they were degenerate. Only classical music was aired instead, thus alienating large swathes of the country’s population, almost proving the British officers right.

But ironically, it was Hindi movie songs, and Vividh Bharati, which had now unified the country as nothing else could. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Gujarat