I don’t know if you still listen to conventional radio – Akashvani, Vividh Bharati, and the BBC. The valve radio and later the transistor radio, both of which enjoyed pride of place in our drawing rooms, have disappeared from modern-day homes. The radio is now mostly heard on the car stereo. Cab drivers are among the biggest patrons of the medium today.

A lot is said about the romance of the radio though, and it is often the subject of fond nostalgia. Who robbed conventional radio of its allure? Television, for one. The visual medium, first in black and white and then in colour, was able to lure audiences away from radio listening. Television serials took away the avid readership print magazines had cultivated for serialised fiction, and that is another story. As TV technology and program

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