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
13th and 14th 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
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