Once upon a time , when the bullock cart was the speedy mode of transport, I used to look the rhythmic movement of the bullocks as well as the carts. The cart driver will be whipping the bulls for more speed, like now a days we apply accelerator for motor cars...That was a time, when long caravans of bullock carts were lined in front of big go-downs for emptying their cargo...These were carrying copra, spices and other agricultural products from far off places which was brought to the port town for export to other countries and for domestic use. The town in question was none other than Alleppey, which was also called the "Venice of the east" due to its extensive network of straight canals. These canals were connecting the vast back waters to the seaport.
I was celebrating my early childhood with all possible pomp and show. In early 60's, when even radios were sparse, the only way to look out was only through newspapers. From the age of six, I started reading newspapers. Even now I am able to recollect the news and photos about the 1961 Indo-China war..Then the passing away of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in1964. Then , in newspapers, four full pages were filled with the photos of Nehruji, at different places and occasions. Then comes the 1965 indo -pak war.. At that time , some public places , like Libraries, were having the luxury of a radio..Not pocket size ones, but table filling type big ones made by Philips and Murphy. To understand what is going on in radio , was very difficult, as sounds like fireworks was coming out from it more than programs. So it was a tedious task to hear something from radio. Radios came to homes slowly and secondly. Now, see the case of Televisions..It first bombarded houses and secondly appeared in public places.
At that time radio owners were have to take licence to use it...But with with the appearance of Transistor radios, the picture changed. Radios of table tops has started becoming small and small, fitting to pockets. Due to wide acceptance of radio, the license raj for radio ended...Almost by that time, the gulf saga has started, and radio with tape recorder started tickling in. Purely obsolete in today's standards, but a wonder at that time...The pace of change was so fast that, television started appearing in homes. Only black and white...a wonder at that time..primitive in today's standards..all of a sudden color TVs appeared in homes, slowly but spread like a wild fire...Poor radios had to had a sad retreat from most homes. TVs started setting the agenda of households.
With the fast attack of TVs on homes, the new age media has taken the center stage of our life. Now the visual media dictates the agenda of our life. Reading habit has taken a back seat and the new generation is not at all reading anything. They have got computers..Oh...the new generation is having the world in their fingertips...in the shape of mobile phones and computers..what a change..Once, fifty kilometer was a far off place. To get a telephone call, yes land-line, we were to book the call and wait for hours to get connected. Sometimes the connection will not happen at all...What a change in fifty years..May be, so rapid the changes than, the last 5000 years.
I was celebrating my early childhood with all possible pomp and show. In early 60's, when even radios were sparse, the only way to look out was only through newspapers. From the age of six, I started reading newspapers. Even now I am able to recollect the news and photos about the 1961 Indo-China war..Then the passing away of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in1964. Then , in newspapers, four full pages were filled with the photos of Nehruji, at different places and occasions. Then comes the 1965 indo -pak war.. At that time , some public places , like Libraries, were having the luxury of a radio..Not pocket size ones, but table filling type big ones made by Philips and Murphy. To understand what is going on in radio , was very difficult, as sounds like fireworks was coming out from it more than programs. So it was a tedious task to hear something from radio. Radios came to homes slowly and secondly. Now, see the case of Televisions..It first bombarded houses and secondly appeared in public places.
At that time radio owners were have to take licence to use it...But with with the appearance of Transistor radios, the picture changed. Radios of table tops has started becoming small and small, fitting to pockets. Due to wide acceptance of radio, the license raj for radio ended...Almost by that time, the gulf saga has started, and radio with tape recorder started tickling in. Purely obsolete in today's standards, but a wonder at that time...The pace of change was so fast that, television started appearing in homes. Only black and white...a wonder at that time..primitive in today's standards..all of a sudden color TVs appeared in homes, slowly but spread like a wild fire...Poor radios had to had a sad retreat from most homes. TVs started setting the agenda of households.
With the fast attack of TVs on homes, the new age media has taken the center stage of our life. Now the visual media dictates the agenda of our life. Reading habit has taken a back seat and the new generation is not at all reading anything. They have got computers..Oh...the new generation is having the world in their fingertips...in the shape of mobile phones and computers..what a change..Once, fifty kilometer was a far off place. To get a telephone call, yes land-line, we were to book the call and wait for hours to get connected. Sometimes the connection will not happen at all...What a change in fifty years..May be, so rapid the changes than, the last 5000 years.
nice to hear the sequence of changes that took place over years from someone who has experienced the speedy growth of communication.
ReplyDeleteyes mashe...what a rapid change with in a short period.but in my home there is a radio in kitchen
ReplyDeleteso that i can here the programs and also to adjust time of my kitchen work .
Do write more about alleppey . Simple writing......and captivating too....
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time...
ReplyDeleteകൃസ്തുമസ് ആശംസകള്.
Wonderful writing Sir.
ReplyDeleteNice to see you sharing the sweet, nostalgic memories. Still I remember the black Philips radio at my house with the single speaker. The Ceylon Channels (we have to turn the knobs to tune to different bands). From the rear side I was able to see the valves inside! (like huge chambers working hard and doing some magic). One thing we had to take care is to switch on the radio some around 10 mins before the programme starts! It will take a while to come to life.
Once the transistors showed up, I became a big fan of that!. Early morning I used to listen to the 'Kausalya..' keerthanam and the 'Prabhathabheri' (think thats the name..not sure) to charge my life cells..
Its bit hard to stop writing about all these!
May be our next generation will talk about ipods and tablets as some antique gadgets!..who knows?!
The first thing got reminded in my mind when I finished reading this is the difficulty we experienced to get Mathrubhoomi ( "the newspaper" ) during the Indo Chinese war. We had to book in advance with the vendor and only copies for the regular customer was available. Changes.............. we are really lucky to enjoy so many social and technological developments, good or bad, in all fields of life. Your post seems to be an account of my own experiences.
ReplyDeleteBirds with same feather will.......the saying goes like that. When I read your article and the comments ,I noticed one thing, all of us are of the same interests!. It took me also to my early days.I used to go to the market once in a week with my father to hear Radio at a hotel. Then Radio appeared at our Panchayath Office.We used to listen film songs after Vayalum Veedum or Natin puram from Kozhikode AIR. Those golden days!. While at Farook college we listen Vividh Bharathi and Radio Ceylon from the hostel Radio. Binaca Geetmaala from Radio Ceylone was one of our favourite programmes. Before coming to blog there was a site created by me and I used write about Radio,Tape recorder,Television,Computer, Mp3 player etc in it. But later deleted every thing and started blog and participation in community sites like Orkut, Mazhathullikal,Kootam etc. But now my main concentration is in blogs and Face book.But it is interesting to say that people of our period could enjoy both old and new, from Gramaphone to latest gadgets in electronics,we are lucky in that aspect. Thank you very much for sharing your experiences here.Your style is like R.K.Narayanan's Malgudi days!. Kep it up!
ReplyDeleteTremendous changes took place during the last five decadesin various sectors. During my college days I had to spent nearly two hours for travelling a distance of twelve kilometers to reach college. Such was the speed of the buses then. The steam engines could pull eight or ten compartments or twenty five to thirty goods wagons. They run at a speed of 40 to 50 Kms? Hr. Now Kerala Express runs at a speed of 100 to 120 Km/ hr with 24 compartments. As mentioned by you considerable progress has been achieved in the field communication . Telephone was a luxury and middle class people could not afford the same. I saw radio for the first time in the house of a relative who had returned from Malaya. Similarly T.V. was seen at first in an exhibition. I cannot imagine what all changes have to witnessed by me in the remaining life.
ReplyDeleteWith the fast attack of TVs on homes, the new age media has taken the center stage of our life....
ReplyDeleteGood Good......
Really impressed............
Enjoyed reading this. Seeing the bullock carts made me feel sad - thinking of the plight of those poor animals. In my childhood days even though radio was popular, because of the poor conditions at home we couldn't own one. I still remember the day when my father bought me a small transistor. Likewise the memory of the day on which we became the proud owners of a TV is very live in my mind. Knowledge, science and technology are not fast developing but exploding - thus the rapid changes.
ReplyDeleteഞാനിതു നേരത്തേ വായിച്ചു.
ReplyDeleteശരിയാണ്. ഒരുപാട് മാറ്റങ്ങൾ ഉണ്ടായിട്ടുണ്ട്. നാട്ടിൻപുറങ്ങൾ കണ്ടാൽ തിരിച്ചറിയാത്ത വിധം മാറി.
ഈ ഓർമ്മകളുടെ യാത്ര വളരെ നന്നായി. അഭിനന്ദനങ്ങൾ.
വളരെ നന്നായിരിക്കുന്നു ഈ കാലത്തിന്റെ ഓ൪മ്മ. ഇതൊക്കെ എന്റെ മനസ്സില് പച്ചയായിക്കിടക്കുന്ന ഓ൪മ്മകളാണ്.കാളവണ്ടിയായിരുന്നു അന്ന് ലോറി.റേഡിയോ അന്ന് എന്റെ ഏഴഴലത്തു ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നില്ല. പിന്നീട് ഒരു ഉദ്യോഗസ്ഥന്റെ വീട്ടില് ഒരു റേഡിയോ വന്നു. മഗ്രിബ് കഴിഞ്ഞ് ഞങ്ങള് ആ വീടിന്റെ പറമ്പില് പോയി നില്ക്കും പാട്ട് കേള്ക്കുവാനും വാ൪ത്തകളറിയുവാനും.റേഡിയോയെക്കുറിച്ച് ഒരു ഭാഗം ഇവിടെ വായിച്ചപ്പോള് ചിരി വന്നു: ചീറ്റലും പൊട്ടലും മാത്രമേ റേഡിയോയില് കൂടി കൂടുതലും പുറത്തുവരും.ആരെങ്കിലും മരിച്ച വാ൪ത്ത മരിച്ചൂന്നും ഇല്ലെന്നും റേഡിയൊ കേട്ട് പറയുവാന് കഴിയില്ല. പൊട്ടല് കാരണം.ഞാന് പത്താം ക്ലാസ് കഴിഞ്ഞപ്പോഴാണ് വീട്ടില് കറണ്ട് കിട്ടിയത്.അന്ന് എന്റെ ഇക്ക ഉമ്മയെക്കൊണ്ട് സ്വിച്ച് ഇടുവിക്കുന്നത് ഞാനിപ്പോഴും ഓ൪ക്കുന്നു. സ്വിച്ച് തന്നെ ഒരാന സ്വിച്ചാണ്. കറുത്ത് വലിയ ഒരു സാധനം. ഒരു മരപ്പലക നിറച്ചുണ്ടാകും.ഞങ്ങള് ഒരു മക്കളും കുട എന്ന ഒരു സാധനം ചൂടിയിട്ടില്ല. മാര്ക്കക്കുളിക്ക് ഒരു കുട വാങ്ങിക്കൊടുക്കും. ഒരു ചെരിപ്പും. പിന്നെ ഇല്ല.
ReplyDeleteഈ നല്ല ഓ൪മ്മയ്ക്ക് നന്ദി.