Radio

 The wedding rituals were complete and the entire village had gathered to bid the bride and groom farewell, the traditional bidaai ceremony was going on . A lot of promises and vows were made by the groom to the bride’s father about taking good care of Geeta , the only child of Zamindar Himmat Singh . The groom , Ratan Singh, a Subedar Major in the Indian Army was taking home his petite, pretty new bride , Geeta, with great pomp and show . A white coloured Ambassador Car was decked with strings of red roses while a  band played all the Bollywood classics , in particular “ Le jayenge Le jayenge dil waale dulhaniya le jayenge”

Geeta’s new home was in the adjacent village , just a couple of hours away . After teary goodbyes, the couple sat in the bridal car and drove slowly keeping in sync with the band .

Geeta entered her new home and was welcomed very warmly by her in-laws and relatives. A couple of days thereafter went in a frenzy of rituals and village gatherings. Geeta and Ratan barely got time with each other. As was customary , Geeta started helping out with all the chores in the house and a week just rolled by . 

One morning , her father in law , Basant Singh , was sipping tea sitting on the big swing in the courtyard, when a telegram was delivered in the name of Subedar Major Ratan Singh . He was attached to an armoured regiment in the army and was posted at GangaNagar, a small border town in Rajasthan. The Army base was about an hour away from the main town . 

“ Ratan, there’s a telegram for you “, hollered Geeta’s father in law . Ratan was out in the fields romancing his newly wed wife , on hearing his father shout out to him , he returned and took the telegram. “ Leave cancelled, return to base immediately “, the telegram read . 

“ Baba, I will have to go back to the base , my leave is cancelled “. Geeta was crestfallen on hearing this . “ Baba, tune into the radio set and let me hear the news”, said Ratan . Basant Singh tried his best to tune into the radio, the frequency was difficult to catch. He managed to get the news -“ Ye Akashvani hai , ab aap Devaki Nandan Panday se samachar suniye”, blared the radio . A war had been declared between India and Pakistan , that was the reason why Ratan Singh’s leave was cancelled .

Teary eyed, Geeta packed Ratan’s clothes in his big trunk , sobbing all along . A sense of gloom had descended on the entire household, where the wedding decorations had not yet been removed . 

“ Don’t worry Geeta, I will be alright and shall take care of myself . I will write to you every day if possible , but the mails may take a long time to reach “, said Ratan . “ How will I know if you are safe or not “, cried Geeta between sobs . “ Don’t worry, every night at 10.30pm, on Vividh Bharathi , there’s a special program known as “Jaimala, Fauji bhaiyon ke liye”, where we can dedicate a song and send messages back home to our loved ones . Tune into that each day , and you will hear a message from me “

Just before Ratan left , he bought a small transistor for his wife Geeta . 

Basant Singh would keep the radio on and  tune into the news as many times as it was aired everyday , Ratan’s mother would anxiously wait for the postman , while Geeta would tune into Jaimala each night at 10.30, in the privacy of her room . She would be overjoyed to hear the RJ read out a small message for her and dedicate a song to her on behalf of Ratan . 

A month went by as the radio continued to convey  Ratan’s well-being to Geeta . One day , the news informed the public that the war had been called off and there was a call for peace . Overjoyed, Basant Singh conveyed this message to his family and Geeta, in particular. That night , Geeta tuned in to listen to Jaimala , but there was no message from Ratan . Night after night , Geeta would tune into Jaimala in the hope that she would get some message from him , but to no avail . She was dismayed, anxious and disheartened. Her family and friends would tell her that probably Ratan was on his way back home after the war . 

She anxiously waited for the postman who came twice a week to see if there was any letter for her . Her heart would skip a beat with apprehension each time there was a knock on the door .She continued to tune into Jaimala each night . “ No news is good news”, she was told by her family , equally anxious. They had no means of contacting the unit at the base . As far as Geeta was concerned, there was ‘Radio silence ‘ in her life , which was eerie. She started losing hope but didn’t stop listening to Jaimala , always with a prayer in her heart . 

One evening, she had finished with all the night chores that followed after dinner. Tired and exhausted, she got ready for bed while tuning into Jaimala. She fell into deep slumber out of sheer physical and mental exhaustion, as the Jaimala kept on airing . “ Geeta, I am home “, said Ratan very softly, she thought she was dreaming .  She woke up not expecting to see Ratan . But there he was , alive in flesh and blood . Geeta and her family were overjoyed to see him return home . There were celebrations in the house of Basant Singh and the entire village. 

Life went on happily for both Ratan and Geeta . Ratan kept moving from one border post to another , but All India Radio, Vividh Bharati and in particular the “Fauji Bhaiyon ke liye Jaimala “ and Ratan’s messages through the radio remained a constant in Geeta’s life , till the time FM radio came into the picture and “ Fauji Bhaiyon ke liye Jaimala “ was replaced by “Jaimala Gold “, a repeat of all the old episodes . 

Radio has been and still is an integral part of all our lives . 

We have to be eternally grateful to Guglielmo Marconi , the father of Radio who proved  that communicating with radio waves was possible.