Wednesday, May 12, 2021

OUR MURPHY MAYFAIR RADIO

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In 1972 or so my Father bought a  Murphy Mayfair Radio a sample of which is shown above along with its antenna. My father was busy putting two nails on the wall to tie the antenna and from thence started a fine form of entertainment at home.It cost Rs.400/- I think then which was a sizeable amount by those standards. My father wanted his children to listen to the English news everyday so that we could improve our stand in the language.

 

With time this equipment became a part and parcel of our lives. It was a vacuum tube radio as transistor radios were yet to come into the market.My mother had a special fascination for Kannada songs and would at times appreciate the creative content in the songs.

 

Early morning six or so my mother used to switch on this wonderful peice and would tune in the Bangalore AIR station where devotional songs were played for some time followed by Raitharige Salahey (which means advice to Farmers).I used to very often wake up hearing this.

 

Most of the time we tuned into the commercial channel of AIR where hindi song programmes were aired every now and then during the day and to a large extent my brother and myself we grew up hearing these songs though we did not know what it meant. There is no hindi song worth the salt we have not heard during this era. My fervent desire at this age was to learn to speak the Hindi language and understand it.

 

Somehow for some unknown reason slowly this equipment faded out of our lives after more than ten years may be because of the growth of Television. But this Radio made our lives happy and the home was full of all kinds of music for more than a decade.



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