Radio Receivers: India
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Museums, collections
Ram Singh Bouddh’s collection
Sandeep Rai, April 29, 2023: The Times of India
Ram Singh Bouddh, 67, has vivid memories of the time when his village Mohammadpur, in UP’s Moradabad, welcomed a huge “talking cabinet” on a summer afternoon in the mid1960s. The pradhan invited the entire village to listen to the All India Radio broadcast. Many turned up just to get a glimpse, and when he played the radio the effect was magical. Everyone was wide-eyed, but 11-year-old Bouddh was smitten. Decades later, radio remains Bouddh’s first love. Having retired from the post of supervisor at Warehouse Corporation of India, he spends most of his time with his prized collection of 1,500-odd radios that he has built up by staking out junk markets in Delhi, Meerut and several other towns. The radios – relics of a bygone era when television hadn’t reached the masses – are neatly stacked in the upper-storey rooms of his family-run Siddharth Inter College, on NH 9 in Amroha’s Gajraula town. “I have more than 1,500 radios, of which 1,100 are of different types,” says Bouddh, who aims to set a Guinness record for the biggest radio collection, and claims a visit from Guinness World Records (GWR) is on the cards. Another Indian, M Prakash, had set the current record with his collection of 625 different radios in July 2005. Preserving For Posterity Bouddh, who spent his entire month’s salary of Rs 350 to buy his first radio in 1977, became a collector 20 years ago when he realised India didn’t have a radio museum. “As a student of history, I used to visit museums all across,” he says, “I realised there was not a single museum for the radios we grew up listening to. ” Troubled by the thought that future generations would never know the significance of radio and its evolution, he decided to build his collection.
He points at a radio labelled ‘Marconiphone 7200 England’. “It was made in 1920 and is the oldest radio I have. The company that made it was founded by the radio pioneer and Nobel laureate Guglielmo Marconi, who developed long-distance wireless transmission systems using radio waves in 1901. ” Then, with evident pride he adds that a Marconi operator on the Titanic had helped save hundreds of lives by getting a distress message across to the rescue ship Carpathia.
“Here’s another one, a radio stereo made by a German company called Grundig. It’s a 1936 model and could be seen only in the homes of the affluent. Back then, it cost Rs 15,000… a tractor could be bought for the same amount at that time,” says Bouddh.
He knows the name of every model that he owns, and is well-versed with the technological advancements that changed radio over time. “Vacuum tube radio transmitters were used from the early-20th century to the 1950s. They were enormous and very expensive. However, with the invention of the semiconductor in the 1940s, smaller, cheaper and more durable solid-state devices began to be produced. By the 1960s, with the development of transistor technology, radios became even smaller and affordable for the masses. In fact, ‘transistor’ became the common name for radio. ”
Now telecommunication has entered the lightning-fast 5G era, but Bouddh says, “One should not forget that it all started more than a century ago. Radio has an interesting journey that I wish to preserve through my collection. ”
Keeping Them Tuned
Besides collecting rare radios, he spends a considerable amount of time keeping them up and running. “Barring a few, my radios are in working condition but they need a lot of maintenance. I have to regularly remove carbon depos- its from the circuits and keep them under the sunlight once in a while to prevent fungal growth. They are like babies who need continuous nurturing. ”
With age catching up, Boudhh is preparing to leave his collection in capable hands. “My 29-year-old son Rahul has a keen interest in radios and I am confident that my collection will be in good hands after I close my eyes to the world,” he says.
“I have grown up seeing my father rummaging through junk markets, making friends with scrap dealers and travelling non-stop to different cities merely on a tip-off. Today, people are filled with awe when they see the magnificent collection but no one knows the toil and struggle that has gone into creating this piece of history,” says Rahul, adding that he would like PM Modi, who shares his thoughts with people through ‘Mann Ki Baat’ on radio, to come and see the collection. Mandeep Kaur, AIR’s former director of programmes, is all praise for Bouddh. “Radio has been an integral part of our lives since the Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) came into existence in July 1927,” she says, adding that old radios and information about radio’s evolution are “important for the new generation that still uses radio but in a different form embedded within the circuit of mobile phones”.
