It was some time in the mid 1940s. As soon as the little boy returned home from school, he would dump his school bag on the sofa rather carelessly and then turn on the radio that was placed on a corner table in the room.
Avoiding family members' attention, he would quietly examine the radio in the hope of finding an answer to a problem that had been bothering him for quite some time.
He would try to peep into the set while it blared music, but the thick tapestry that covered the front frustrated his attempts. He would go to its rear and look inside through the holes in the frame of the set, but to no avail.
Yes, he was a music buff who immensely enjoyed the lilting music, vocal as well as instrumental, that emanated from the radio. But that is not why he was examining it.
The box-type radio must have been about 15 inches by 10 inches by 10 inches in size. Transistor radios had not yet been invented, so big radio sets were the order of the day.
Owing to people's lack of exposure to the outside world, as well as scientific and technological developments, the level of awareness was low. The growing child's mind was filled with wonder as to how music was pouring out of the radio.
One day, he posed this question to a casual visitor. But instead of quenching the youngster's thirst for knowledge, the visitor led the boy, as a joke, to believe that the singers and instrumentalists were inside the radio.
Since then, the curious little boy became increasingly anxious to see his singing idols. He was happy to be in possession of a radio set in which they had taken up residence - stars like melody queen Noor Jahan (she later migrated to Pakistan in 1947), the legendary K.L. Saigal, Zohra Ambalewali and Pankaj Mullick, all in one place. Wow!
Convinced that these singers were all under his control, the child was filled with joy. He started to get fanciful ideas. But at the same time, certain questions bothered him. He needed answers.
Were his singing idols miniatures like the Liliputians - say three to four inches tall? How else could they fit inside the 10-inch-high radio? And if the musicians accompanying them on violin, harmonica, tabla, flute and the like were of similar size, their instruments must be as small as a match stick, the boy said to himself.
To his disappointment, the boy was never able to see his favourite artistes in the radio.
When he transitioned from childhood to adolescence, he discovered that he had been misled by a prankster. Initially, he did not share his embarrassing experience with any schoolmates, for fear of being labelled as 'stupid'. But later it was comforting for him to know that some of his friends had been similarly deceived in their childhoods.
As the little boy graduated to adulthood and then to senior citizen's status, so the 'sitting space' inside his radios shrank. The once giant radio cabinet was steadily reduced in size as engineers developed portable radio transistors, tape recorders and CD players.
Today, 65 years after he had tried to see his favourite artistes in 'captivity' inside the big radio cabinet, the 'stupid' fellow is amused to find his grandchildren carrying Lata Mangeshkar and other singers in their pockets - in iPods, USB drives and mobile phones.
Lalit Raizada is a journalist based in India.
