As soon as he started talking, the entire audience stood up. After five minutes, they all sat down and were all ears. P.P. Sreedharan Unni, the speaker, didn’t know what was happening. Invited to address a gathering of freedom fighters, his sole credential was that he was the voice of Gandhi in a weekly programme ‘Gandhi Margam’, aired on All India Radio (AIR). At 71, Sreedharan Unni still gets emotional while recollecting the incident at Payyannur in 1979-80. “Perhaps they stood up to pay homage to Gandhiji whom they knew through my voice…,” he says.
‘Gandhi Margam’, broadcast by All India Radio, has the distinction of being on air for nearly 65 years now. The programme that airs on Friday morning is a 15-minute episode on Mahatma Gandhi, primarily focussing on excerpts from his autobiography, My Experiments With Truth , his philosophy and ideology, and vignettes from his life. As another Gandhi Jayanthi is here, Friday Review catches up with a few of those behind the programme for whom the show was more than a weekly exercise.
Poet and recipient of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award, Sreedharan Unni was the voice of Gandhi for 30 years, from 1970 to 2000. “It was among the programmes that was mandatory for all stations. When I joined AIR in 1969 at its Kozhikode station, ‘Gandhi Margam’ was anchored by poet Akkitham. When he asked me to take over, I was more than happy. I started each segment with an introduction for which I used a different voice texture. I never missed a single episode throughout my tenure. Even when I was transferred from Kozhikode and whenever I had to take leave, I recorded the segments in advance. I did it with pleasure!” says Sreedharan Unni who retired from AIR in 2004.
‘Gandhi Margam’ is now aired by AIR stations of Thiruvananthapuram, Devikulam, Kochi, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Manjeri and Kannur. Most of the stations focus on the autobiography and rarely come up with innovative ideas. But someone who brought in a change was D. Pradeep Kumar while he was working with the Thiruvananthapuram station. He wrote four serials for ‘Gandhi Margam’ – ‘Ananyamee Dharmapatham’, ‘Anasakthayogi’, ‘Hey Ram’ and ‘Jeevacharithrangalile Gandhiji’.
“In ‘Ananyamee…’ I focussed on little-known incidents from his life. One of them was about the opposition he had to face from the people of his community when he decided to travel to England for higher studies. He was branded an outcast. Another one was on how M.S. Subbulakshmi learnt the Meera bhajan on Gandhiji’s advice,” says Pradeep, who is now working as programme executive with AIR in Kochi. While ‘Anasakthayogi’ was a re-reading of Gandhi’s book Gita – Anasakthiyogam , ‘Hey Ram’ was a recreation of the last days of the Mahatma. ‘Jeevacharithrangalile Gandhiji’ examined how Gandhiji was portrayed in various biographies written by greats such as D.G. Tendulkar, Romain Rolland, Vincent Sheen and Acharya J. B. Kripalani among others. He plans to publish a book on these episodes.
“Many stations are sticking to the old format of reading out from his autobiography because there was a time when the programme became a current affairs show with Gandhiji’s ideas and quotations taking a backseat. So a policy decision was taken to focus on his autobiography alone,” he says.
Both Sreedharan Unni and Pradeep are aware of the declining listenership for the programme owing to the flood of FM channels and other entertainment options. “I firmly believe in Gandhiji’s philosophy and ideals. There was a time when Gandhian principles were followed with a lot of pride.” says Sreedharan Unni.
Nevertheless, the show continues to remind us of the father of the nation, a Mahatma who left behind a lot to be learnt and understood.
