Imagining Sound through thePharmaish: Radios and Request-postcards in North India,c. 1955–1975

Abstract

In this essay, I look at the practice of writing requests for Hindi film songs to the radio, particularly during the first two decades after Independence. I attempt to reconstruct this radio-listening practice from narrative accounts of listeners, radio personnel and fan magazines produced during this period. The article argues that the pharmaish indicated practices of listening and publicity that provided the contours for (a) a mediatised form that emerges in a distinct manner on the radio, (b) a sonic map and (c) an act of ‘recognition’. It is in these ways that the pharmaish may illuminate the elusive terrain of cinematic reception, through the film song as metonym, away from the physical site and time of the cinema hall.