Past perfect, present continuous
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Check out the sale counters of AIR and DD Archives and you would stumble upon a treasure trove of our cultural history. SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY
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With digitalisation, the old, heavy tapes that weighed 10 kgs each, have now been reduced to a mere 20 grams each
Not that one has not seen this tiny outlet with the board “Music of India Sale Counter” while flitting by Akashvani Bhavan on New Delhi’s Parliament Street. But, like countless others, one has never considered stopping by. In the a
ge of non-stop FM radio, what exclusive music can All India Radio offer after all?
Well, peep through the iron railings of the sales counter and you would be pleasantly surprised.
A friendly B.R. Nager, an AIR staffer for the last 25 years, hands down to every customer two colourful booklets, one listing albums from the Akashvani Archives and the other from Doordarshan Archives. Flip through them and you realise what a treasure trove this hole of a counter holds.
Recordings of rare recitals of stalwarts of Indian classical music, many of whom are no more now, fill the stall.
Rare recordings
Names like Omkarnath Thakur, D.V. Paluskar, Musiri Subramania Iyer, Aziz Ahmed Khan Warsi, Semmangudi, Allauddin Khan, Amir Khan, Krishnarao Shankar Pandit, Pannalal Ghosh, Begum Akhtar, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan among others stand out from a stack of CDs.
You discover that some of the recordings even date back to the 1940s. Say, Pandit Omkarnath Thakur’s concert at Parliament House in 1947, in celebration of our Independence.
Transferred to CDs, VCDs and DVDs now after a painstaking restoration process by in-house and freelance experts, these archival recordings have also been grouped into series like Bharat Ratnas, Sufiyana qawwali, Rabindra Sangeet, etc.
With the audio visual media making its foray into India in the late ’60s, the counter also has dance dramas, series on vyanga-kavi sammelan, classical dance, some valuable documentaries, etc. from the Doordarshan Archives recorded since the ’60s.
Says Nager, “Last month, we registered a sale of Rs.2 lakhs. Lots of NRIs come here to buy.” He shows a piece of paper with a name written on it. “He is from Canada and has placed an order for Rs.20,000.” A customer gets a 15 per cent discount on the printed price.
On speaking to Kamalini Dutt, Director, Archives, Doordarshan, one learns that DD has just acquired a “highly expensive” imported machine called Archangel to restore its old tapes. “It is a real angel for us. It is far advanced than what clean-up machine we have till now. It is a big leap towards bringing our archival material to the public,” says Dutt.
Six staffers from her department are to be trained to handle the machine for the next few weeks. With digitalisation, the old, heavy tapes that weighed 10 kgs each, have now been reduced to a mere 20 grams each. “The existing racks are two big for these new tapes. I have asked for new ones,” she adds.
As the old tapes, housed at the Prasar Bharati office at Akashvani Bhavan, have not been kept in a good condition, most of them have fungus and often their bindings break up and voices get cracked. With Archangel, things might be better now.
Karuna Srivastava, Director, AIR Archives, mentions similar problems with the old tapes. Many valuable tapes have already been lost forever across different stations. However, Srivastava adds, “The libraries of most regional centres of AIR now have air-conditioning.” Talking of possibilities, she says, “We have all the speeches of Prime Ministers and Presidents till now. We have recorded versions of all national symposiums, Radio Sangeet Sammelan, radio autobiographies, old plays, important radio interviews besides rare music concerts.”
AIR has already released speeches of S. Radhakrishnan, Zakir Hussain and Lal Bahadur Shastri on the Indo-Pak conflict, besides excerpts from Pandit Nehru’s speeches.
Archival material
AIR possesses the only available audio documentation of our country since before Independence it has been harbouring a sea of material, which has a lot of archival value today.
DD too is working on retrieving its news and current affairs programmes, and also memorable tele-series like “Bharat Ek Khoj”.
Both the directors agree that not much has been done to market the products. “The usual discount goes up by 5 per cent during anniversaries, etc. Retailers who buy in bulk get 30 per cent discount,” says Srivastava. Though no plans are in the offing to advertise them with hoardings, etc, both Doordarshan and AIR would soon have sales counters at post offices. “A separate website and acceptance of plastic money will have to be worked out,” says Dutt.
But till then, carry cash and lay your hands on these gems only at the sales counters at AIR and DD stations across the country, besides an occasional window at Dilli Haat, etc.
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