Jamshedpur, Feb 12: As the city gears up to celebrate, World Radio Day on February 13, Kadma resident Chinmoy Mahto, who is known for his passion for radios, says that radio can play an important role in reversing this trend by helping youth to represent themselves and to speak about issues that are important to them.
He said that radio has absorbed new technologies and emerged stronger over the decades. Yes, radio is still relevant. Though it is easy to say that the world has gone digital, the radio is not dead. Even today, during calamities like the recent floods in Mumbai, the role radio played could hardly be overstated.
“Radios have always fascinated me. As my parents used to say I fell in love with radio when I was only four year old. My father was in the air force and when he was posted in Burma, he brought a Japan made radio and I fell in love with it. I still vividly remember that people used to gather at home to listen to the radio,” recalled Mahto. Over the years, he started collecting radios and has preserved them with care.
In an attempt to preserve radio sets for posterity, Chinmoy Mahto of Kadma on a strange task fuelled by passion to collect discontinued sets. With nearly 200 radio sets of different eras in his kitty, Mahto is on the lookout for more to expand his collection.
Through his journey of collecting radios right from childhood, he kept his passion alive during his professional life too. “People have different hobbies, but from childhood, radios have been my first love. Initially, I used to collect radios from my friends. They used to give it for repair, but with the TV hitting the market, many gave their sets to me,” he says. He made new friends, who extended their support in his endeavour of collecting vintage radios.
This strange passion for vintage radios led him to collect models of various brands though he is modest about his range. “ Old radios are like a treasure for me. Though I do not have all the vintage models and am focusing on collecting as many as possible,” he said.
Most of his collections are drawn from well-known brands such as Philips, Sanyo, Sony, Phillips, Siemens, Kaide, Elta besides a working model of a radiogram, which combines a radio with a record player. An advocate by profession he also runs a driving school.
Mahto, heads the Guide International Radio Listening Club (GIRLC) that he started with four other radio passionate in 1974. GIRLC still has about a 100 members today and regularly meets to discuss radio programmes.
