“God controls the earth from the sky. Air traffic controllers control the sky from earth.” Thus begins a 20-minute documentary of Madurai station of All India Radio on a section of unsung heroes of the country.
Naanga Kelambura Neram Vanthachchu (It’s time for us to take off) virtually places the listener inside an air traffic control tower to understand how air traffic controllers orchestrate a symphony of big birds in the sky. It has won Akashvani Award 2015 in Radio Documentary category, the only award for Tamil Nadu this year.
“The idea to do a programme on air traffic control came to me when I was observing the sky, with criss-crossing aeroplanes, near Qutub Minar in Delhi last year. When I approached Madurai airport officials with a proposal, they immediately agreed to cooperate with me. In fact, the script for the documentary was written by Deepak Senthil, Air Traffic Controller,” says Savitraa Rajaram, Programme Executive, producer of the documentary.
The AIR team, comprising Mr. Rajaram, S. Karthigai Deeban, Transmission Executive, and R. Narayanasamy, Engineering Assistant, spent almost a day at the control tower of Madurai airport to capture ‘live’ sounds. “It was a new experience for the AIR. The sounds of landing, taxiing and take-off of aeroplanes have been well captured by the team so that the listener gets a real feeling of being in an airport,” says M. Ashok, Assistant Director and Programme Head.
Interspersed with original music and commentary, the documentary captures the nuances of air traffic control in great detail and makes the listener appreciate the stamp of clinical precision in the work of air traffic controllers. The bigger challenge for the AIR team was to translate a multi-sensory feeling into an aural format. “We spent more time on editing, especially in the compilation of effects,” says Mr. Rajaram.
