The moment I hear the word transistor, the first thing that comes to my mind today is the semiconductor device, a building block of most of the modern electronic devices. But this was only after I took up engineering. Up until then, transistor to me was that little black box that relayed morning news while we brushed our teeth half asleep. It was the magic box was offered music lovers a chance to enjoy music even when they were traveling. Cricket buffs would get their dose of excitement via the airwaves as commentary rattled out from a tiny pocket transistor.
Aakashwaani or voice of the sky is what the national broadcast service in India is called and this voice was as angelic as it got for not everyone had television for entertainment. I remember listening to wonderful programs on Vividh Bharati, chaaya geet, sangeet sarita, bhule bisre geet, ek hi film se, aap ki farmaish. The regional service would also air interesting programs, every saturday around noon we would tune in to listen to "baal jagat". I remember when I studied in the 2nd standard, a group of students from our school even recorded a program that was aired as a part of the show a couple of weeks later. The trip to the recording studio was something I remember even to this day for we sat in a glass room with lot of microphones and we could not hear anything from the outside. It was quite an experience. We sang a few songs and delivered lines of a student-teacher conversation sort of play. I remember some of the songs we sang for we had practised for months before the recording. As for the the play, I don't remember a thing. Soon television started airing more programs and we kids weaned away from the radio and got glued to the idiot box. Much later, in the early days of my engineering, FM radio started gaining popularity and with private channels joining in, airwaves offered more variety to the crowd on the move. City travel is now a long drawn affair with traffic jams and the FM channels offer commuters a chance to relax and unwind on their way to/from work. Only now, the good old transistors are replaced by cell phones and i-pods.
This post is shared with April A-Z blogging challenge for alphabet T
Picture is from Google images
Those days there were hardly any advertisements bugging us. They used to always tell the names of movies from which the songs were played, along with the singers name etc. They never used to talk nonsense like these . It is so irritating to hear them speak, and also the advertisements which really takes away all the fun. Not only that they mostly never tell the name of the movie and also they mostly never play the full song too. I have stopped listening to it, and only play the CDs
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you Rama, for most part, the RJs keep jabbering nonsense. You are so right, they no longer credit the singer or the lyricist or the composer. For most part I play my playlist randomly.. That way I get to savour the complete song..
DeleteOh yes, the good old days of radio and transistors! Bhule Bisre Geet, Hawa Mahal, Jaimala, Binaca Geetmala were some of our never to be missed programs! FM radio channels are good but the number of advertisements and sometimes the nonsense chatter of RJs gets on my nerves so when traveling I am forever changing the channels!
ReplyDeleteSame pinch Shilpa, the ads really irritate me..
DeleteI had this in my home when I was small, and the effort it required to tune it made me feel so happy and proud :-p
ReplyDeleteOh yes, it made us feel genius :)
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