By Girija Madhavan
August 15 marks the joyful anniversary of India’s Independence in 1947 and the tragic one of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima on 6th August 1945 that changed modern warfare and its possible outcome forever. In 1945, I was seven-years-old and lived in a spacious colonial bungalow of the Mysore State Railways allotted to my father, M. Venkatesh, an engineer. In the high ceilinged drawing room with teak beams, was a cabinet holding a prized possession — a radio. Wires for the aerial ran from it to the ventilator near the ceiling. The radio was large with a polished wooden top, a central panel covered with a textured cloth. Underneath was a strip of illuminated glass with the names of stations (other markings and knobs for volume and search. The names were foreign like Hilversum and Grenoble. However, by adjusting the controls one could find stations of All India Radio.
