I remember the person who was attracted towards the FM Radio station, Radio Mirchi that was playing in my car was a Chaudhary, a tribal from South Gujarat. He was one ofthe construction workers amongst a pool of tribals who migrated from Panchmahals. He was dressed in typical tribal attire that defied any established conventions. At blazing sun releasing rays that clocked 44-degree Celsius, Chaudhary was wrapped in winter clothes. He was pretty comfortable with that single pair. But he clearly expressed his unhappiness over what he had been listening over thirty minutes. It included good songs, a lot of classified ads, traffic information and a lot of unwanted advises from the announcer.
Gradually he took out a transistor set that he purchased a few days back. He asked me whether I had two pencil cells so that he can hear it. I gave him two from my stock that I carry for my mini disc recorders. I offered him help to set his radio to 91.90, the radio Mirchi Band wave. But he refused my offer and instead tuned himself. He tuned to All India Radio and slowly without a single turn he disappeared slowly out of my horizon. I haven’t seen him since.
But there I realized the government’s deliberate attempt to keep out news from radio stations. FM radio stations have come up offering music that gets repeated every thirty minutes, traffic information that is not more than a joke, cookery information that nobody takes note of and lucky draws offering movie tickets nobody wants to see. I listen to it each time I drive my car within the city. It didn’t change my perspective towards anything.
That is the reason Chaudhary, presumably an illiterate, needs to know what is happening in his region, his state, his country. Though Supreme Court clearly ruled that government cannot control air waves, the government still continue to keep a strict control over it.
To continue
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