Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee 31.12.23
2023-2024
The time gap between today and tomorrow is 24 hours. It could
be one minute at 23.59 today. And it could be one year when it is on 31
December. I just discovered that is another way of looking at time, and day and
year. Ha! That is some self-praise at the end of the year, which saw
megalomania at a much larger scale.
From Putin, relentlessly pounding of Ukraine to Trump,
relentlessly trying to impose himself on the world (for America, according to
him is the lord of the whole world) to many such persons in sadda Bharat, we have no dearth of
megalomaniacs- thinking themselves to be the centre of the universe.
Will 2024, the birth centenary year of Harishankar Parsai,
satirist par excellence in Hindi, who in his writings lambasted megalomaniacs
see more of that variety? Time will only tell.
100 years of Radio
Broadcasting in South Asia
Since
the first broadcast in South Asia in June 1923, radio, one of most potent
protean medium, has been remixed, fragmented, diverted into apps and a growing
audio broadcast industry. It was on June
1923 the Radio Club of Bombay (now Mumbai) made the first ever broadcast in the country. This was
followed by the setting up of the Calcutta Radio Club five months later.
Radio Ceylon in
Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) became first radio station in Asia in its earlier
avatar Colombo Radio launched on 16 December 1925. It was followed
by one in Kabul by King Amanullah Khan in the same year.
It is interesting to note that radio made
its entry in South Asia in India, the first radio stations were set up in Sri
Lanka and Afghanistan; and the first community radio ‘Radio Sagarmatha’ was
established in Nepal in 1997
In undivided India, Indian Broadcasting Company
(IBC) came into being on July 23, 1927.
It was liquidated in three years. In April 1930, the Indian Broadcasting
Service, under the Department of Industries and Labour, commenced its
operations on an experimental basis. Lionel Fielden was appointed the first
Controller of Broadcasting in August 1935. In the following month Akashvani
Mysore, a private radio station was set up by K. Gopal Swami, Professor in
Psychology in Maharaja College. On June 8, 1936, the Indian State Broadcasting
Service became All India Radio (AIR). It was renamed Akashvani in 1956 on the
suggestion of poet Pandit Narendra Sharma. However, both the names were used
till recently.
Interestingly
Radio, unlike print and television media, made the journey from analogue to
digital without much difficulty or friction. As a medium it finds itself as
intimate, versatile and flexible in digital ecosphere as it was earlier. It is
as creatively challenging as ever. The digital technology, especially AI
(artificial intelligence) has of course thrown new challenges and provided
exciting new opportunities.
I
have had a long association with radio beginning in early 1980s when I was a
casual announcer in AIR, Cuttack. As radio broadcast turns 101, here is wishing
it a very bright future.
Maruti@40
Remember the first indigenous ‘people’s car- Maruti
800, the little hatchback. The first batch of these cars rolled out from the factory Maruti Udyog Limited located in Haryana, close to Delhi December 14, 1983. India, then was
still under the licence raj. As India gradually opened up its economy, Maruti,
the frontrunner became a beneficiary of liberalisation.
 |
| The first Maruti Car that was sold to this gentleman, 40 years ago. |
The tiny ‘people’s car’, revolutionised personal
mobility and served as a link between the old and new journey that India
undertook. Interestingly it was in 1983, that Indian cricket team under Kapil
Dev defeated the mighty West Indies at Lords in England against all odds.
Curiously there is a similarity between this two
completely different incidents. As
Maruti shook up then sleepy passenger vehicles market in India, challenging the
duopoly of Hindustan Motor’s Ambassador car and Premier Padmini and soon became
the symbol of aspiration for millions of middle class Indians, Kapil’s devils
showed India ‘can do’.
Displacement
We are all displaced at some time or the other. The
issue is: whether you are displaced forcefully against your will and how well
you cope with the displacement.
If you are displaced forcefully, then the pain will
remain for a long time. That is trauma.
Displacement brings with it loss of identity. That is
probably more painful than material loss. Nostalgia remains through
generations. My mother land remains in my blood. As I continue to live the old
blood cells die gradually, new blood cells take birth. If this happens in a
favourable condition- the country I am in- becomes my mother land in two
generations. If done forcefully it does not and the pain remains.
Swapnamoy Chakravorty’s 2023 Sahitya Academy award
winning novel ‘Jaler Upar Pani’ is a depiction of life in a refugee colony in
West Bengal. It talks about loss of identity and taking on or morphing into a
new identity.
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| Cover of 'Jaler Upar Pani' |
Tailpiece:
Happy New Year
Q. Why did the man sprinkle sugar on his pillows on
New Year’s Eve?
A. He wanted to start the year with sweet dreams.
(Courtesy: Social Media)
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