Once home to popular Binaca Geetmala, Sri Lanka's 'Radio Ceylon' service turns 100

Colombo: Sri Lankan radio service that was once popular across India as just 'Radio Ceylon' and popularised 'Binaca Geetmala,' a one of its kind weekly countdown show of Hindi film songs, turned 100 this week.

Sri Lankan radio service was officially launched on December 16, 1925. It was the first commercial short-wave station in Asia, according to government records here.

“The National Radio boasts the largest library of recorded songs in Asia, including rare Hindi song records not found in India and a unique collection of world leaders’ voice recordings,” said a statement from SLBC when it marked the centenary.

Originally part of the Department of Telecommunications, the radio service was reorganised on October 1, 1949 as 'Radio Ceylon' and later, on January 5, 1967, rechristened as the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC).

It was on Radio Ceylon that for almost four decades, once every week exactly at 8 pm sharp, thousands of Indians tuned in to listen to the iconic voice of Amin Sayani.

Sayani’s baritone Bhaiyo aur Beheno reverberated across the Indian Hindi film music crazy sub-continent sending excitement among millions of his listeners about which songs would be featured in that day's listing.

Binaca Geetmala was broadcast on Radio Ceylon from 1952 to 1988; then it moved to Vividh Bharati service of All India Radio in 1989 and ran there till 1994.

Today, SLBC broadcasts three Sinhala, two Tamil, and one English service domestically, alongside foreign services in Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam.

On December 16 this year, the Hindi announcer started by saying how the songs from the 60s and the 70s, known as Hindi film music's golden era, were so popular in Sri Lanka that there were copies of it in Sinhalese language too.

“On Sri Lanka’s special day today, I am bringing choicest songs from that era … those songs are equally popular in Sri Lanka,” she said and played Kora Kagaz Tha Ye Man Mera from the 1969 romantic musical Aradhana.

However, there are no listeners to the Hindi programmes (or for that matter, for other Indian languages too) in Sri Lanka itself as they are broadcast on short wave 25 MHz band.

The All Asia English was a morning programme from 6 am to 9 am and was always flooded with requests from Indian listeners for pop music. “A lot of chit-chatting happened during this programme,” said Sonali Jayasinghe, 59.

She and her schoolmates in 70s to 80s were also regulars making requests for songs in the 2-3 pm Monday to Friday ‘Specially for housewives’ request show in the domestic English service.

“From what I remember on the All Asia English service, requests came in from all parts of India but Secunderabad was on top, I don’t know why. Then there were people from Bandra, Bombay (now Mumbai) and Shillong, Meghalaya too,” she recalled fondly.

Presenters such as Niranjan Abeysundera, Indrani Senanayake, Thilani Peiris, Eric Fernando, Vijeya Corea, Dudley Jansz, Mahes Perera, Leon Belleth, Nihal Bharethi, V Rajendra, Mahinda Wijesundera became household names in parts of India with regular fan mail.

Subhashini de Silva, the current archivist with a long period of service, told PTI that ‘PO Box 574, Colombo’ the SLBC’s unique address was set up due to the sheer volume of the fan mail and several hundreds of post cards reaching the station for its request shows.

“The fan mail was so much (in volume) we needed a special mail delivery service,” said de Silva, whose main job today is presenting the Hindi service of SLBC from 6 am to 8 am daily. “We play popular Hindi songs from Hindi movies which have a big fan following in India,” de Silva said.

SLBC holds to date over 70,000 records of music in what has often been described as the best in Asia going back to low fidelity 78 rpm records with meta data. The LP hi-fi records of pop music from the 40s to 50s to 60s and 70s are still in use.

“SLBC is legendary – many generations grew up with it,” Arun Dias Bandaranaike, a veteran radio compere told PTI. His studio STX was a hit with a large following.

Bandaranaike was, however, critical of periods in which too much political interference led to decisions that were taken under measures of austerity. One such was the scrapping of the All Asia English on shortwave in the mid-90s.

It was the All Asia English that was witness to and told the world about all major events across the world – the many wars, the changing face of the British dominion, Mt Everest's first climb, first man on the moon, and Lanka's independence to name a few.

From its formation until the mid-90s, it was the only radio broadcaster in the island. Today, it may have lost its monopoly after the proliferation of private radio channels but its fans still revel in the fact that the Old Lady, who has served generations with a feast of classical, pop to hip hop, Motown, jazz and country, will surely continue to do so for another century.