When radio sang a different tune

With COVID-19 forcing people to stay at home more than ever before, it is to the humble radio that most of us have tuned in for vital information as well as the latest songs. A recent study by the Association of Radio Operators for India (AROI) states that home listenership of radio has gone up by 22 percent during the course of the past few months. That must be great news to the over 350 private radio stations in the country under severe strain from the dwindling ad spends.

Time was when India had just one and half radio services. The government-owned All India Radio (AIR) was obviously predominant and there was the half, Radio Ceylon which brought us the popular Binaca Geetmala. Although BBC was broadcasting in India, access to it stayed difficult. Surprisingly, considering what became of it later, AIR was quite feisty and even lively, bringing us a range of programmes, including plays and features, besides the news.

However, radio then as now, was all about music, mostly from Hindi films. Once a week, we also got a taste of western music, thanks to popular programmes like Musical Band Box which was a Sunday afternoon fixture for years. It probably drew its inspiration from the Binaca Hit Parade, a hugely popular countdown of English pop music which was aired on the All Asia Service of Radio Ceylon. Looking back, sponsoring a western music programme in India was a pretty smart move by a dry-cleaning company at a time when giving clothes outside for laundry wasn’t yet a big thing.

Presented for years by the inimitable Jija Bhattacharya, it carried cutesy messages from listeners celebrating birthdays and wedding anniversaries though occasionally there was also the hint of more amorous declarations with enough clues to set tongues wagging. This was the era before the Radio Jockey became a diva and a comic rolled into one. The hosts of these popular shows were referred to as presenters and were held in high esteem. After all, who would dare to call Ameen Sayani a jockey of any kind!

Equally popular were the radio jingles of the time. The first ever commercial jingle was that of breakfast cereal Wheaties in the United States on the Christmas Eve of 1926. It took India another 41 years for AIR to start commercials on Vividh Bharati, but soon enough ad jingles became a popular source of entertainment in their own right.

There was Nirma's Doodh ki safedi ad in 1975 much before model-turned actor Sangeeta Bijlani lit up our screens in its TV version. Not all the jingles were particularly hummable, but even these had a high recall quotient, maybe because there was no clutter unlike what we have today. There were ads for Rooh Afza and Metro Shikakai oil, Cuticura talcum powder and Harnik whistle pop, which sounded as stilted then as they do now.

If the musical acme was Titan's signature tune based on Mozart's Symphony 25, the pits had to be the irritating Mummy mummy Modern bread. The product truly complemented the jingle in that case. Not surprisingly, Murphy Radio, whose sets occupied pride of place at most Indian homes, also had its own jingles though it was its print ad with the famous Murphy baby that garnered far more attention. The radio jingle sung by the legendary Mohammed Rafi sounds disappointingly tame and there is some doubt whether it is indeed the great man himself or an imitator. With the British company having long since been amalgamated, that mystery remains unsolved.

The Bournvita Quiz Contest was another Sunday highlight in the 1970s, not least because my school would often be in the race for the title. The accompanying jingle, At school and play or through each day was about the only thing that coaxed me into drinking milk though to be honest it was actually worsened by the taste of the vitamin supplement.

Each of these radio jingles added a fresh layer of excitement to the lives of those of us who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. Now as the radio sings a completely different tune, it is hard to imagine that we spent so many hours of our childhood waiting for that one special song.

​(Sundeep Khanna is a senior journalist. Views are personal.)