Decorated Trucks of Pakistan

 Radio Waves

We spent many a late night turning the dial on the radio to catch beautiful sad music from radio Moscow, afternoons after college, curtains drawn and radio tuned to the soft  dulcet tones of Radio Pakistan or being terrified listening to the Sunday Studio 9 radio play "Sorry Wrong Number".

From Radio Pakistan’s first transmission at midnight between 13^th and 14^th August to the many FM radio channels today, radio has transformed from the transmitter of culture -  classical music by Baray Ghulam Ali, launching great names such as Mehdi Hasan,  radio plays  that formed  our best loved television stars,  talent shows, heads of state announcing the onset of war or the imposition of Martial Law -  to the light hearted entertainment of today’s chatty FM transmissions. 

While WWI introduced the destructive face of technology, long range guns, aerial bombardment and mustard gas, it also developed entertainment radio from advances in wireless transmissions.  Commercial radio took the world by storm, bringing entertainment into people’s homes, especially the working classes who did not have access to concert halls or academic discussion venues. Radio created a shared national, and, in time a shared international culture.

Families once sat around the radio until the transistor radio arrived in 1954, allowing  radio to travel with the listener. Today listeners can access radio via internet. The website radio.garden allows listeners to hear live FM radio anywhere in the world.

Election results, news, sports commentaries and of course, a variety of music, makes radio accessible to a range of tastes. In Karachi’s violent 90s when people had stopped going out except for essential journeys, the arrival of the FM 100, with phone in programming lifted broken spirits as children recited poems, and adults, especially women, expressed opinions in ways they had almost forgotten.

Studies have revealed that radio has the most mood enhancing effect of all media including television and the internet. Radio provides company while listeners continue with practical tasks such as cooking, driving, manual labour or exercising.  Presenters become intimate  friends for  listeners as they go about their daily activities.

During war time, pigeons and trained dogs carried messages. Coded radio transmissions made communication easier, with command headquarters  as well as with spies.  In WWII 1500 radio amateurs were recruited to intercept secret codes broadcast by the enemy. During the 1971 war, while fiddling with the radio dial, we overheard an SOS which we reported.

Pirate radio stations, operating  from hidden locations, played an important role in introducing new  music, from  reggae  to dubstep, that conventional radio would not touch. In Pakistan,unfortunately, the only illegal radio transmission was run by the Taliban "Maulana Radio" to spread religious violence.

Radio Art emerged almost as soon as radio began. In 1921 the Mexico futurist poet Manuel Maples Arce  was using radio as a medium for sound poetry.  Purists, writing the Radio Art Manifesto, say “radio  art is not sound art - nor is it music. Radio art is radio.”  The  Polish artist Katarzyna Krakowiak in her project Radio Free Jaffa (2009) pulled a shopping bag on wheels with a hidden radio transmitter  across Jerusalem broadcasting:  "We’re very sorry for the inconveniences on the road. On the corner an Arab mother with six children are being evicted from their home in a social housing estate. ". There are You tube  videos that demonstrate  “how to build an FM Radio Station in 15 minutes”

Radio in Pakistan has yet to fully explore its potential to create cultural awareness – bringing back radio plays, literature, classical music, discussions, educational programming in mainstream transmissions as well as its possibilities as an art form. 

Durriya Kazi

January 6, 2019

durriyakazi1918@gmail.com   

x