Like many organisations across the globe, a village school in the district too celebrated World Radio Day on Wednesday, but with a difference.
An exhibition titled Newseum made the celebration unique by having a solid array of mass media related objectives, particularly radios, on display at Government Higher Secondary School, Peruvalloor.
Personal collection
What made the exhibition special was that it was a personal collection of a newspaper journalist: A.P. Noushad from Kannamangalam near Vengara. People who visited the Newseum stood in awe in front of the 50-odd radios, 300-odd cameras, 400-odd mobile phones, 1,000-odd newspapers, 10,000-odd magazines, and a wide variety of television sets, tape recorders, stamps, coins, books and antiques.
When the United Nations encouraged the World Radio Day of 2019 by recognising the power of the radio to promote dialogue, tolerance and peace, Mr. Noushad came forward to do his first mega exhibition of the radios and other articles he has passionately collected over the last two decades.
Curious students
For the curious students, there was a lot to learn from the large valve radios of yesteryear that required a licence to play. “A licence?” asked a curious student.
“Yes, a licence was needed to possess a radio transistor in the initial days,” explained a teacher to the students. Mr. Noushad had a penchant for mass communication and its tools even when he was at school.
“First I started collecting pictures of sports personalities, then stamps and coins, then newspapers, magazines, cameras, radios, mobile phones, typewriters, and so on. It was all for curiosity sake,” said Mr. Noushad. Mr. Noushad’s collection has treasures from imaging history.
So are the mobiles phones from the initial years of mobile telephony.
A journalist with the Madhyamam newspaper at Perinthalmanna, Mr. Noushad was overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response at the exhibition. Many were surprised by the portmanteau word Newseum.
“I chose the word on realising that I had procured enough for a school level news museum,” said Mr. Noushad.
