Dear,........,
Hello. I hope you have enjoyed reading my yesterday's blog post. Today I will continue describing the other interesting staff. Next is AE-3. He was a very nice gentleman. He was a graduate. I always wondered how and why he had joined this office at all. His father was a very high ranking public officer - probably Municipal Department Chairman. The family was rich too. His grandfather / father had a big piece of land in Srinagar city. They had made a colony out of this piece of land. The colony was called Bishambar Colony. AE-3 was a down to earth gentleman. I did not have a chance to work with him. He appeared to be good at his work and had good knowledge. He was also well read and had deep knowledge of the history and geography of the valley. He would be performing duties at the transmitter site at the time I was doing my duties at the studio centre. In early eighties, he was promoted to the post of Superintending Engineer and posted to Doordarshan Srinagar. I was working there at that time. The first meeting that he had with us, he mentioned that he was completely ignorant about the TV technology. He said that he would be completely dependant on us and he would just be a figure head. (And he remained a figure head. We would do our duties and never needed his help. We would respect him a lot.) He had to retire in less than a year from the date he joined. He did one very good job. He planned a tour once every week to different parts of the state. He would tell us that we were good at our work in office but we were ignorant about the history of our place and people. The touring party would consist of two vehicles, technician, a TV Set, a power generator and antenna etc. He would apprise us about the history on the way. The journey would get intercepted by setting up of the TV Set and antenna system and then check the TV signal and reception at the location. This continued for almost six months. At the end, we had a very useful document about TV signal reception at different locations in the valley. This was a very useful survey and helped future planning. Simultaneously we got a chance to see some of the locations in the valley. I had personally planned to see the different places in the valley after my retirement. But God willed otherwise. Kashmir became hell for us after the events that disturbed our community leading to our mass exodus in 1990. I have seen very little of the valley.
All these AE's 1 to 3 were Kashmiri Pandits. AE-4 was one from Jammu area. He would do duties at Receiving Centre. He would rarely come to the studio centre and the transmitter centre. I did not have a chance to see him much. In early 1965 he was issued with transfer orders for Jammu. I was sent for duty at the Receiving Centre to get acquainted with the set up. I spent one week with him and then took his position when he left for Jammu. His diction was typically Jammu Dogri Hindi.
Srinagar had a huge unbuilt area in the form of a ground in the middle of the city. This was known as Polo ground. It was said that the Maharajah would play Polo here in pre independence time. There were four or five small huts built at different locations on the sides of this ground. It was said that these were for the resting of horses prior to the games. After Independence in 1947 when Radi Kashmir came into existence, one of these huts was given to them for location of the Receiving Centre. Four broadcast radio receivers - 10 band shortwave sets were installed along with other audio and power equipment inside the small hut where horses would be tied a few years earlier. The place looked awful. Outside the hut, there were special wire antennas suitable for various shortwave frequencies. We had to match the proper antenna to the receiver for best reception. (One important piece of information here - broadcast receives would not work if not connected to an antenna. This would ensure that with properly connected antenna, the reception of the radio signal would be clear and with least noise.)
One very interesting episode happened after I started doing my duties there. I would come to this workplace from home on my bicycle. After I had tuned the news bulletin from Delhi for the last late night relay by us, I would be all ready to leave. The cycle would be on the stand outside. The moments the last word, "that is the end of the news bulletin" was heard, I would switch off the power in in a flash I would be out. The chowkidar would lock the place and the key would be placed in a sealed envelope duly signed by me. The chowkidar would next morning show the sealed envelope to the staff coming for duty and on finding it tamper proof, would the place be unlocked. This was normal practice. One day, just when the bulletin ended and the door was getting locked, the telephone inside rang. I did not bother to listen. I just ignored it and left as usual for home. Next day I was told that this was a call from the unit looking after the duties of the chowkidar. They wanted to convey a message to the chowkidar for a change in duty for the next day. When I had not picked up the phone, someone from the main office came to the Receiving Centre immediately after to convey the message to the chowkidar. It was reported to me next day that when that person reached the Receiving Centre he found no chowkidar there. When I investigated the matter I was told by the Police guard that the chowkidar had always been leaving immediately after we would leave after the last news bulletin and come back early in the morning before the morning shift duty person would come. This had been happening for months and nobody ever knew it. He was supposed to be staying at the Receiving Centre for all night as normal duty.
One day in the first week of August 1965, my Station Engineer came to the Receiving Centre in the forenoon. This was rare because he would be busy at the studio and transmitter stations most of the time. He started trying to tune the receivers. I learnt from him that a pirated radio station called "Sadai Kashmir" had started random broadcasts aimed at Kashmiri people to revolt against the government. The announcement on the radio would claim that it was being broadcast inside the valley and had been started by freedom fighters. We were able to locate the station frequency. The broadcast reception was poor but audible. It was both in kashmiri and urdu. Each broadcast would be for about 30 minutes and would be repeated a number of times during the day. The radio transmitter for this broadcast appeared to be located somewhere in Pakistan Held Kashmir near the border with India. Kashmiri muslim population to whom it was directed started taking notice and were enthusiastically listening to the message. Unknown to most, All India Radio arranged a transmitter within two days and installed it at a safe location in the Srinagar valley. As soon as the Sadai Kashmir broadcast would start, the signal would be jammed by broadcasting a tone signal on the same frequency through our transmission. Every day the local muslims would tell that the Sadai Kashmir signal had deteriorated and they could not hear anything. They did not know we were jamming the signal Very few staff members knew it too. Only a few staff members would be sent for this mission to the location of our transmitter. I was not one of them.
Bye for now. More tomorrow. I will touch on the attempt by Pakistan to ferment trouble in Kashmir in 1965. Sadai Kashmir was linked to that. There were other steps taken by them. God helped us and their plans failed.
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