Radio Garden: A Nostalgic Journey Across Time and Cultures
Before my family bought a television set, it was radio that I stayed glued to. I must have been 10 years old, or maybe 9. My grandfather, uncle and I would sit close to a massive analogue radio. One of them delicately held the dial between the thumb and the index finger, fine-tuning, ear close to the speaker, listening carefully for a clear sentence of English amid the sizzle and the crackle of radio signals. A clear signal that lasted for barely a minute put a huge smile on our faces.
Back in the late 1970s, the rectangular machine was our window into the world, a world we had never been to.
Each glowing dot represents a radio station.
Sometimes I listened to a cricket commentary for a game played in New Zealand, Or the news from BBC London. Every once in a while the radio caught a station that wasn't English, but I listened anyway. A foreign language from thousands of miles away — how exotic!
This week I stumbled upon a new website on the Internet called Radio Garden. Curious, I clicked on it and a globe started spinning before my eyes. It looked similar to Google Earth. Then I zoomed into the East part of the India. And then a radio station started playing. On the bottom left side of the screen it said, Ahmedabad, India. This is about 100 miles from Himmatnagar, where I now live. On the bottom right side, it said RCG. The Radio city Gujarati radio station was playing.
I planned to move the cursor halfway around the world to my homeland but first I dropped in on Baroda,India. My screen now said Sayaji FM. I couldn't understand a word of the song, but the rhythm was upbeat, the kind of music you'd listen to while running on a treadmill. After two songs, I then wandered to Delhi. Lata Mangeshkar Redio India,FM 91.1 was on my screen.
I took the cursor to India and put it in New Delhi, India. A Hindi devotional song was playing. The bottom left of the screen said, 10.57 p.m., New Delhi. On the right: Bollywood Radio. I couldn't help but smile.
The whole experience of tuning into stations on Radio Garden was exactly like the analog radio I used to tune several decades ago. Even the crackle and interference of other stations sounded the same. The only difference was that I was using the track pad of my laptop — not the radio dial.
I thought about how Jonathan Puckey described Radio Garden's idea of connecting listeners with distant cultures and re-connecting people with their roots. I found it funny and true. Back in India, when I was little, I used radio to connect with faraway places. Now living in the U.S., I was using Radio Garden to go home again.
Radio Garden
Back in the late 1970s, the rectangular machine was our window into the world, a world we had never been to.
Each glowing dot represents a radio station.
Sometimes I listened to a cricket commentary for a game played in New Zealand, Or the news from BBC London. Every once in a while the radio caught a station that wasn't English, but I listened anyway. A foreign language from thousands of miles away — how exotic!
This week I stumbled upon a new website on the Internet called Radio Garden. Curious, I clicked on it and a globe started spinning before my eyes. It looked similar to Google Earth. Then I zoomed into the East part of the India. And then a radio station started playing. On the bottom left side of the screen it said, Ahmedabad, India. This is about 100 miles from Himmatnagar, where I now live. On the bottom right side, it said RCG. The Radio city Gujarati radio station was playing.
I planned to move the cursor halfway around the world to my homeland but first I dropped in on Baroda,India. My screen now said Sayaji FM. I couldn't understand a word of the song, but the rhythm was upbeat, the kind of music you'd listen to while running on a treadmill. After two songs, I then wandered to Delhi. Lata Mangeshkar Redio India,FM 91.1 was on my screen.
I took the cursor to India and put it in New Delhi, India. A Hindi devotional song was playing. The bottom left of the screen said, 10.57 p.m., New Delhi. On the right: Bollywood Radio. I couldn't help but smile.
The whole experience of tuning into stations on Radio Garden was exactly like the analog radio I used to tune several decades ago. Even the crackle and interference of other stations sounded the same. The only difference was that I was using the track pad of my laptop — not the radio dial.
I thought about how Jonathan Puckey described Radio Garden's idea of connecting listeners with distant cultures and re-connecting people with their roots. I found it funny and true. Back in India, when I was little, I used radio to connect with faraway places. Now living in the U.S., I was using Radio Garden to go home again.
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