Hi Harsha Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the Binaca Hit Parade featured English songs (was it on Saturday evenings - I forget), whereas Geet Mala featured Hindi songs. I remember how my two elder brothers (and sundry friends) and I used to gather around the radio and furiously scribble down the words of new songs in our little notebooks so we could sing them at the next do/ dance at the Railway Club!! Having said that, I must admit that the little (and quite affordable) song books used to find their way to the pavements of Colaba Causeway, or Connaught Place, or Park Street, or Brigade Road quite soon after the song was first played on the Hit Parade (and on AIR's Saturday Date and the Wednesday Listener's Choice). Simple, sweet days, simple, sweet kids... On 29 April 2010 14:35, Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar <[email protected]>wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Feltham" > When I was at VS, we would listen to the "Binaca Hit Parade" > broadcast from Radio Ceylon on a Sunday evening. > > ================= > > Don't - John, please don't get me started on the subject of Radio > Ceylon - now known as SLBC or Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. > I love it and can speak volumes. I was pleasantly surprised to read > that you were a Binaca Geet Mala (song parade) fan. > > Sadly, SLBC's foreign service is no longer what it was a decade > or so ago. TV and FM radios have brought down their listenership, > advertisement revenues have gone down to nil and so the > government in Colombo no longer seems much interested in > financing SLBC to keep running the very popular Hindi service. > A die-hard short-wave buff and an avid listener of SLBC's Hindi > service like me feels disgusted and hurt while catching the very > poor quality transmissions on 31 and 49 metre bands. > > I am not sure of my facts, but vaguely remember reading somewhere > that the present-day transmitters of the SLBC once belonged to the > Voice of America and set up there during the second World War. > Their life is probably over by now but without governmental funding > upgradation is not possible. So SLBC somehow still manages to > show a smiling face to the world by relying on those aged machines. > > In the meantime, here is something on the history of Radio Ceylon > (SLBC): Eighty Years of Broadcasting in Sri Lanka, by Ivan Corea > > The Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation celebrates 80 years in 2005 > - a historic landmark in the world of broadcasting. To this day the > SLBC is the oldest and finest radio station in South Asia. > > http://www.dailynews.lk/2005/12/27/fea02.htm > > Oh, and just by the way, how many of you have heard the National > Anthem of Sri Lanka? Its words and music are perhaps THE BEST > amongst national anthems from the entire world. A beautiful, haunting, > magical melody. > > --- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar > > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

----- Original Message ----- From: "mukund murty" Hi Harsha Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the Binaca Hit Parade featured English songs (was it on Saturday evenings - I forget), whereas Geet Mala featured Hindi songs. ==================== My mistake. I was thinking only of the Hindi service of Radio Ceylon or SLBC. They used to also have their All Asia English Service and, wind and weather permitting, I used to listen to it sometimes. But my main interest was and still is in their Hindi service. Don't know if that English service is still on the air. The hit songs parade both John and you are referring to was a regular feature of this English service but I forget on which weekly day. The Binaca people used to sponsor it. The popularity of this English song parade prompted them to sponsor a similar programme for Hindi songs - this was the Binaca Geet Mala, aired on every Wednesday between 8 and 9 pm. During the 1960s and 70s it became so famous that its host Ameen Sayani achieved an iconic status - similar to that of Willis Conover of VOA's Jazz Hour. The Binaca Company later became Cibaca and coninued to sponsor the show for some years, but when the TV boom started in India in the 1980s, they stopped paying for it and the show was - much to every fan's everlasting regrets - discontinued. --- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar