Frederick Noronha
Would you like to hear the bad news, or the even worse news? Well, if like me, you’re a fan of the radio, then the past few weeks must have been pretty depressing for you as well.
All India Radio at Altinho saw its locally-generated broadcasting go off the airwaves. This was replaced by boring programmes from New Delhi, with a lot of news and boring stuff. Sometimes even in languages which one couldn’t even recognise. Leave aside understand. Or cricket commentary, which few listen to on radio nowadays.
Okay, so like the rest of the state too, the local AIR channel got hit hard by the pandemic’s second wave. COVID hit the radio’s operations, like the rest of the state. It was sad to hear of deaths in the AIR families. That much is understandable.
But, the way the operations simply collapsed, wasn’t excusable.
If that was the bad news, there was even worse news. That was the way in which nobody noticed the collapse of Goa’s main, and decades-old, radio station. If they did notice, nobody (or almost nobody) raised the issue. It was as if AIR didn’t matter.
This is simply not true.
AIR is the successor to the Portuguese-run ‘Emissora de Goa’ radio station. At one stage, together with Radio Ceylon (later the SLBC), it dominated the airwaves of large swathes of Asia. Even to the extent of reaching Africa.
In the 1950s, when Asia was just awakening to political independence, Goa had powerful radio transmitters and interesting radio programming. This took its voice far and wide.
After the 1960s too, the new setup – Akashvani or AIR – has played a key role in the cultural life of the region. It defined the music tastes of Goans, both in Konkani and in English. Its popular announcers (like Imelda Tavora or Allen Costa) were larger-than-life characters widely known in Goa and beyond.
Perhaps the AIR also shaped the way in which the Konkani language is spoken and understood, which dialects are acceptable, and which vocabulary gains credence.
The writer from Anjuna, Domnic P F Fernandes, has written a rather long article titled ‘The Good Old Days of Radio’. In this, he vividly remembered radio details from Goa’s history. Such as the two homes in Gaumvaddy, Anjuna, (Mario’s and Captain Jack’s) that owned HMV gramophone record players many decades back.
Fernandes notes: “During the Portuguese regime, Goa had a powerful radio station, ‘Emissora de Goa’, the reception of which reached as far as East Africa and the Gulf States. Antonio D’Souza from Siolim served as the music director of the station for 22 years. Cota from Santa Cruz also served the station for many years during pre- and post-Liberation period. The station transmitted Portuguese songs like ‘Encosta tua cabecinha’, ‘Corridinho’, ‘Vem, Vem Minha Flor’, ‘Cadiza-za-za-za’, ‘Olha Policia’, ‘Mama Eu Quero’, ‘Laencima’, etc.”
He went on to describe in crystal-clear detail the programmes of an average ‘Akashwanni Ponn’je’ day from its early devotional music called ‘Amcho Aadhaar’ to its ‘Bhuimchamfin’ music by local artistes, the names of some popular singers of those times and their songs, the children’s programmes in Konkani on Sunday mornings, English mid-day music, Konkani pre-siesta slots.
Fernandes mentioned the evening and night programmes, in times when TV and cable was still unheard. The radio kept audiences glued, sometimes till the close of transmission quite late at night.
As Fernandes notes: “Pocket transistors were very much in demand in the 1960s and 1970s; they were especially used to listen to cricket commentary. People held transistors close to their ears – just as one holds a mobile now… In the 1970s through the 1980s, Jeremias Benao [of Mapusa] aired football commentary which was brought right into each one’s home by All India Radio, Akashwanni Ponnje!”
So what happened? How did this medium fade away, to the point that it goes unmissed, or uncommented on when it stops its routine local programming?
Part of the problem is the new competition it has had to face from video-cassette, news cassettes, official and (more so) private TV outlets, and now the internet and smartphones. The latter two especially can deliver all forms of media direct to the end-user, including those which radio once had a monopoly over.
Part of the problem is also that radio listeners, like most other things Goan, have been laid-back and undemanding. This has perhaps allowed the programming quality and staffing pattern to slip, without questions being asked.
One learns that AIR at Altinho has only four RJs (radio jockeys) who are permanent staff. Other RJs work only on a contract basis.
Apparently, permanent staff has not been recruited by AIR at Panaji since 1995. Many employees are close to retiring. The programming staff of AIR, which is badly needed to generate content, consists of 15 per cent of total employees.
So that’s that!
After a break for quite some days, the local AIR (FM and medium wave) came back on the air around the evening of June 17. There were some limitations of the timings at its re-start, from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m., and from 8 to 11 p.m. Given the breakdown in regular listenership, most may not be even aware of its resumption or the new timings.
To make radio work, and make it listenable once more, if at all that can happen, the station itself needs to pull up its socks. At the same time, the public should show enough care and concern about the centre which defines our cultural tastes and allows local music to grow – or helps to kill it.