“There was a time, when you rigged up a radio, using a hair shed by your neighbour’s cat, a spring from your sofa and a few other odd things. But you now have wireless sets, although they have more wires than anything else! Earlier, you were happy if you caught the word ‘Madras’ when you switched on your primitive radio. But now you have programmes through the day.
“Life isn’t easy for the staff of All India Radio either. The other day, a speaker was bombarded with instructions by the staff — ‘Don’t speak so fast.’ ‘Don’t speak so slowly.’ ‘Not so formal.’ The speaker became speechless with fear, and the announcer had to snatch the script from him and read it!”
Those are excerpts from an article titled ‘ Pochu anda naal,’ written by Victor Paranjothi, in the Ananda Vikatan Deepavali Malar (1938). Victor Paranjothi was the first Station Director of AIR, Madras, which was established in June 1938. Inaugural concerts were by nagaswaram maestro Thrivengadu Subramania Pillai, D.K. Pattammal and S. Rajam. Prior to1938, the Madras Corporation did the broadcasting from Ripon Building, with loudspeakers installed in Marina, People’s Park and Robinson Park.
Kasturi
Municipal radio station, Madras, began school broadcasting before AIR started to function. AIR Madras’s school broadcasting began in 1938 October, with separate slots for elementary schools, and high schools. Information on temples, monuments, mythology, science, laboratories, international affairs was provided, through dramatisation, reading of stories and debates.
In 1949, G.T. Sastri, Station Director of Madras AIR, prepared a report for UNESCO on school broadcasting. He pointed out that schools had sets that operated on direct current, leading to electrical interference. Schools were more interested in getting good results in the final examination and did not want to spend money on radio sets! While the budget for AIR Madras was ₹ 3.16 lakhs in 1946, only 17000 was spent on school broadcasting. Because of AIR’s efforts, the Madras education department finally decided to incorporate school broadcasting in the course in Teachers’ Training colleges, and in the school curriculum.
Through its Radio Eppadi column, Ananda Vikatan reviewed AIR’s programmes, in its usual tongue-in-cheek style. Milk was scarce during World War II, and the government asked restaurants not to serve milk sweets. So Vikatan wondered why AIR’s cookery programmes gave recipes for milk halwa. During the war, lights went off at nine, due to air raid precautions. In view of this, “Why does AIR jeopardise the safety of women artistes by giving them 10 p.m. slots,” asked Vikatan . When fewer sabha kutcheris were broadcast, Vikatan asked if war time rationing applied to concert broadcasts too!
G. Selvam
In 1949, Vikatan observed that if AIR had not cancelled Navaratri kutcheris, maamis visiting kolus might not have been asked to sing. It was to please them that AIR had made the decision! There was a lull in drama broadcasts in 1945, and Radio Eppadi reported that one had to tune in to children’s programmes, for plays. There was nothing amateurish about the acting of the children, the journal wrote, complimenting Lakshmana Iyer, who was in charge. After a long time, ‘Guru Upadesam’ written and produced by Sanku Subramaniam was broadcast, and it was a treat, we learn. The popularity of a series of talks by N.S. Krishnan in 1949, titled ‘En Kadan Kalippootuthal,’ is discussed by Vikatan.
Nonagenarian Kasturi says that in the British days, AIR had a strict policy of not allowing advertisements on radio, and scripts were vetted to make sure that there was no inadvertent inclusion of brand names. It so happened that Kasturi okayed a script that mentioned thermos flask. “I did not know that was a brand name. I was pulled up and told to use ‘vacuum flask,’ instead!” chuckles Kasturi. Ironically, when Vividh Bharati became fully commercial in 1969, it was Kasturi who introduced it in many stations, and earned the moniker ‘father of commercial broadcasting!’ He coined the title ‘Thaenkinnam’ for the film music programme on Vividh Bharati. ‘Thaenkinnam’ was followed by ‘Vannachudar’ — 15-minute episodes of a popular stage play. Some of Vividh Bharati’s advertisement jingles had a fan following too, like the 1972-73 jingles for Patel Roadways and Dollar biscuit.
V. Nallathambi
“In the early days, programmes were live. Sometime in the mid-1950s a crude sort of recording came in. A 15-inch shellac coated disc, a cutter and a vibrating device completed the equipment. The cutter would etch grooves on the disc. If damaged, a disc had to be thrown away. I was trained to use the equipment,” recalls Kasturi.
AIR was initially housed in a building called East Nook, in Egmore, and moved to its present premises only in 1954. “One day, in 1952, Chief Minister Rajaji sent word to East Nook, that he wanted to address the people at 10 p.m. But he gave us the script only at nine, with the warning that not a word from the speech was to leak out. Rajaji was going to announce the abolition of rations. If word got out, merchants might have tried to hoard grains. But by the time they heard the news it was too late in the night for them to attempt this. As Rajaji had anticipated, the price of rice fell,” says Kasturi.
“The people who say ‘sorry’ the most are radio announcers,” says 87-year old G. Selvam, who retired as Station Director AIR Madras. For the first classical concert that he announced, he got the name of the mridangist wrong. He said Mirugabhoopathy, instead of Murugabhoopathy, and had to apologise profusely. Trained by de Mellow, K.P Rangachari and Mi Pa Somasundaram, Selvam learnt early on that for features programmes to click, they had to be off-beat and unique.
“Station director S. Kandasamy’s (Thuraivan) script on the Vellore fort, for instance, highlighted a lesser known aspect — the dismantling of the pillars in the kalyana manadapam of the Jalakanteswara temple by the British. The ship that was to take the pillars to England sank, and taking this as an ill omen, they abandoned their plan. When I produced a programme on the Marudu brothers, I incorporated folk songs about how they surrendered to save the Kalaiyar temple,” reminisces Selvam.
Talk shows of AIR were always popular, and Vikatan gave excellent reviews to lawyer V.C. Gopalratnam’s hilarious talks in the 1940s. In 1988, Selvam asked Thenkachi Swaminathan to do a talk show — Inru Oru Thagaval — which ran successfully for 12 years, with Sivaji Ganesan, S.P. Muthuraman and AVM Saravanan tuning in to the programme without fail at 7.30 a.m. “We bought books for 5,000 rupees for Thenkachi to read. But he had no need for them. He was well read and information just flowed from him,” says Selvam.
V. Chakravarthy
G. Selvam remembers Station director S. N. Murthy waiting at the entrance for artistes and escorting them to the studio. “Murthy would stay in the studio till the end of a concert. Dr. V.K. Narayana Menon was also very warm towards artistes. He knew Western music and could also play the veena. AIR had a huge pool of talent. And most of us were avid readers. K.P. Rangachari used to say that only one who was deeply read and widely travelled could be a good broadcaster,” says Murthy.
With Ayyasami Iyer at the helm, children’s programmes were a forte of AIR Madras. Earlier the compere was called ‘Radio Maama,’ but Ayyasami changed that to Vanoli Anna. Ayyasami set up 40 children’s associations in the city with the help of Thangam Ulaganathan, a school teacher. Members of these clubs were roped in for ‘Muthukuviyal’ and ‘Pappa Malar.’ Earlier children used to play adult characters too, but Ayyasami’s plays had no adult characters,” says Selvam. Children could send in details about their birthday, and would be greeted in Pappa Malar, broadcast on Sundays, 2 p.m.
When Ayyasami retired, V. Nallathambi took over. He took care of ‘Mazhalai Amudam’ (ages five to eight) and ‘Siruvar Solai’ (ages eight to 15). “We got Jayakanthan to do a series for ‘Siruvar Solai.’ One day the Station director received a letter from Chief Minister Karunanidhi, who said Jayakanthan’s programmes were beyond the understanding of children. That was when I realised that such prominent persons were listening to children’s programmes. On another occasion, MGR wrote in to complain that we were giving the wrong message to children by having a peon spoken to disrespectfully in a play. I went to his house and apologised! Children’s programmes helped me understand what ‘mass media’ really meant,” says Nallathambi.
“AIR had strict auditioning rules, with Akhilan coming up with a list of 16 qualities to look for in a voice,” says Nallathambi, who learnt in AIR that one should avoid high flown language in programmes. Nor should one use slang. The ideal style lay somewhere in between the two. “There were three periods in history when Tamil was nurtured — the Sangam age, the period of bhakti literature, and the period when AIR flourished,” says Nallathambi. After Nallathambi left for Doordarshan in 1976, Koothapiran took care of children’s programmes until his retirement.
