“You are listening to 91.9 FM…”
(buzz… crackle…)
“…today’s headlines…”
(another buzz, and suddenly, a song from a 90s film begins to play).

And there she stops tuning. Slowly, her attention shifts to the vegetables sizzling on the stove, the radio playing softly beside her in the kitchen. She tosses the vegetables in the wok as she hums the song playing in the background. 

This was a familiar morning in 66-year-old Bhavani Krishnamurthy’s kitchen around a decade ago. Her day simply wouldn’t begin without switching on the radio.

“The first thing I do after getting up every morning is head to the kitchen to make a hot cup of filter coffee, and even before I begin to boil the milk, I would first switch on my radio and listen to devotional songs as I make the coffee,” recalls Chennai-based Bhavani.

The radio was a stressbuster for Bhavani. “The songs, the live news updates, astrological predictions, and sometimes the spontaneous jokes made........

© The Better India