By Z.G.Muhammad
Mornings then were fabulous. As sun rose behind the Zabarwan hillock that was distinctly visible from the window of my room everything seemed drowned in golden hue. Then it was not the naughty ringing of the timepiece that disturbed my tender dreams but it was the tweeting and twittering of birds perching on the cherry trees in our neighbor’s compound that woke me up. Sometimes the chirruping used to be more melodious than the hundred string santoor being played deftly with mezrab by great maestro’s of yore like Muhammad Abdullah Tibetbaqal. Many times the melodious cuckoo notes would lull me into a longer sleep. Then it would be signature tune of Radio Kashmir intruding from the community radio at the crossing that would intrude into my room and wake me up to tell me that sun had crossed the ridges and rimes of the mountains that had worked as our sentinels and saved us for centuries from marauders and invaders.
The signature tune of radio Kashmir- I don’t know who has composed it but it had become so familiar with me that even in dream I could make it out that it was coming from the community radio and not from the neighbors house that mostly remained tuned to a different radio station with signature tune, “Kariyo Manz Jagras Jaay/ Chhem Nau Maay Mashaney. It was very recently that I had an opportunity of reading in full this poem titled ‘Mayray Watan’ in Shabnam Qayoom’s devastatingly frank travelogue to Pakistan.
There were lots of stories in our childhood about sending behind bars anyone caught murmuring signature tune of AJK radio-today many have put this as ring tone in their cell phones. Those days it was seditious to tune in any other radio station other than the Radio Kashmir. We heard stories about sleuths eavesdropping and people being cane charged and even fed with hot potatoes by dreaded cops for listening to AJK radio.
But as we grew up the atmosphere was not that suffocating the man who had passed this order was behind the bars- and had surprisingly become people’s hero. Ironically, it was the same radio station that had got engaged in projecting him the tallest amongst the tall leaders of Kashmir.
The Radio Kashmir was born in 1947 to counter the programmes broadcast from the Azad Kashmir Radio, Tradkhal that despite taboo’s and restriction those days had highest listenership. To run counter propaganda programmes the services of many of the “progressive writers and poets” from the state and outside had been hired. It lived up to its objectives and produced massive counter propaganda programmes some of which are surviving to this day. But despite it being born as a counter propaganda stations for variety of its programme it had become very popular in our childhood. As I and friends grew up many programmes broadcast from this station became an addiction for us. There were some programmes that I hardly ever missed.
The melodious voice of Raj Begum that greeted our mornings with all its syrupiness resonates even today for me. I don’t know who had put to music the Maqbool Shah Kralwari’s great epic poem Gulrez but Raj Begum had really made it immortal. It was so enthralled and captivating that I forgot everything on listening it. This was followed by the great breakfast programme Zonidab- a programmed that kept my mother, aunt and uncle glued to radio sets.
If thirties of the past centuries were years of our political awakening forties were period of our cultural renaissance. It was during this period that we produced best of our writers, poets and singers. Many times I crave, if we could ever again have artists like Raj Begum, Zoon Begum, Naseem Akhtar, Muhammad Abdullah Tibetbaqal, Ghulam Ahmed Sufi, Hassan Sufi Mohan Lal Aima, Abdul Gani Namtahali, Sanaullah, Ustad Ramzan Joo, Ghulam Mohammad Qalanbaf, and Bamboo brothers. It was a period that gave us a galaxy of scholars and writers. Some of them like Prof. Mohi-U-Din Hajani were a rare combination of integrity, scholarship and intellect. True some despite not being men of integrity knew art of adding magic to words. It is the period that gave us Master Zinda Koul, Dina Nath Nadim, Ghulam Rasool Nazki, Mirza Ghulam Hassan Aarif Beg, Rehman Rahi, Amin Kamil and Ghulam Nabi Khyal.
I remember during winter vacations as well as summers we schedule our day and evenings according to radio programmes. It was routine for me and my peers to gather at 1.30 P.M. every day at the main crossing in our Mohalla and sit on a cycle shop or on barbers shop for listening the ‘fauji Bhaioon ki Farmaish” a programme based on film songs from the community radio.
I think in our childhood radio drama had touched its heights. There was galaxy of radio playwrights Ali Muhammad Lone, Akhtar Mohudin, Satar Ahmed Shahid, Farooq Nazki, Pushkar Bhan, Som Nath Zutshi, Som Nath Sadhu, Bansi Nirdosh and Sajood Selani. It had become a habit to remain tuned to radio Kashmir for listening to radio dramas broadcast at 9.30. No sooner the drama started deathly silence would prevail in the room to be punctured by laughter’s. One of the series of dramas written by Ali Muhammad Lone, Akhtar Mohudin and Som Nath Zutshi, on history of Kashmir was perhaps one of the best I still remember.
I often wrote my comments on these dramas and posted them to radio Kashmir and most of the times my comments were broadcast. It made me feel great when my innocent comments on a radio drama were broadcast.
Z.G.Muhammad is a noted writer and columnist
