Madras Presidency RadioClub

Madras Presidency Radio Club

First Radio Transmitter in Madras.

If you visit the Government Museum in Chennai, you can see the first Radio Broadcasting transmitter which was beaming Radio waves for the first time in Madras, under the Call Sign 2GR, from July 31, 1924. It was Rao Bahadur C.V.Krishnaswami Chetty, an Electrical Engineer with Madras Corporation who formed Madras Presidency Radio Club (MPRC) with some of his Armature Radio Enthusiasts, and took the trouble of going to England to learn the technique of Radio Broadcasting, where Marconi and Co,had just started Broadcasting in 1922.
 
On his return to Madras Mr.Chetty and his friends in MPRC assembled a 40 W Medium Wave transmitter and got the permission to broadcast in Madras. H.E.Viscount Goschen, the then Governor of Madras Presidency who was also the Patron of MPRC, inaugurated transmission on July,31, 1924. Later it enhanced the broadcast to 200 W Transmitter, to broadcast 2.1/2 hrs programs in the evenings, and Proigrams in the mornings on Sundays. It is said the broadcasts of this transmitter had the reach upto Chittoor, Vizayanagaram, Vellore and ever upto Ceylon (Sri Lanka)! The MPRC ran the Radio till October 1927 from Holloway's Garden, Egmore and wound up their transmission activities due to financial difficulties. They presented this transmitter to Corporation of Madras , who in turn took three years to start regular broadcasting from April, 1, 1930 and continued the service till June 15, 1938. Then the Government owned All India Radio started their broadcasting from Madras on June 16, 1938 with their own Transmission equipment.

The Corporation of Madras decided to Present this first Radio Transmitter to the Madras Museum in 1939. Thus it had become a Museum piece.

M.R.JAMBUNATHAN - VEDIC SCHOLAR. (1896-1974)

Sri M.R.Jambunathan - Vedic Scholar

Sri M R Jambunathan

Bangalore Tamil Sangam has a library with good books in Tamil. I took  life membership of the Tamil Sangam, soon after my arrival at Bangalore fifty years ago.

I got the opportunity to read many good Tamil Books from there. Here only for the first time I saw the Tamil Translation of all four Vedas .Interestingly the copies of the books have been autographed by the author. 

These extraordinary translations were done by a Vedic Scholar Sri M.R.Jambunathan. This great person was born to vedic scholar  Manakkal Ramaswami Avadhani and Lakshmi Ammal in 1896. Though a scholar in Sanskrit,Hindi and English Sri Jambunathan loved his mother tongue Tamil. The result of it are his translations. 

After completing his studies in Civil Enginerering, Sri Jambunathan shifted to Mumbai (Bombay). He  served as Civil Engineer in Mumbai Municipal Corporation. As one who had spent most of his life at Mumbai, he started the first Municipal Tamil School there for the down trodden in 1924 in Dharavi. Attracted by the philosophy of liberal thoughts of Maharshi Swami Dhayananda Saraswathi for a Caste less Society he joined the Arya Samaj and translated the Hindi book "Sathyartha Prakash" Magnum opus  of the Swamiji into Tamil.

Rig Vedam in Tamil

Sri Jambunathan wanted to abolish untouchability from the society. He spent his entire life in the uplift of socially and economically deprived sections of ther society. This greatman had dedicated the Tamil translation of  "Sathpatha Brahmanam" of Yajur Veda at the holy feet of Harijans.He contended that Vedic truths are common for every one and they should reach the masses.  The result was his attempt to translate all the four Vedas into his mother tongueTamil. He spent his entire life for this purpose. Translations of Yajur, Sama and Athartvana Vedas were published during his life time He had spent thirty years for translating Rig Veda . But, the first part of Rig Veda Translation was released by his wife Smt Shanthi Jambunathan only after his demise.

Apart from Vedas, Sri Jambunathan had written many books on subjects of the Upasnishads, the Bahmanas, Yoga, teachings of Confucious and others in Tamil

Sri Jambunathan who passed away in 1974 had spent his entire life for translating Vedic Literature and upliftment of untouchables, has brought out 16 books in Tamil and 3 books in English during his life time. I am writing this with the desire to remember this great man who had done single handed the work that should have been done by an institution.

Due to muinificence of his daughter Smt Indira Anantharam Iyer and son in law his Tamil Translations were republished in 1991 and  are available in the following website of Arya Samaj:

http://www.vedicgranth.org/home/the-great-authors/mr-jambunathan/veda

The Constitution of India - Some interesting facts.

On the occasion of celebrating 67 Republic Day, let me present some interesting information about our original Constitution.

Preamble to Constitution

Original signed copies of the Constitution of our Country are hand written and each page illuminated by exquisite art work by artists under Acharya Nandalal Bose from Kala Bhavan, Shantiniketan. The original text and Art work of the Preamble was done by Beohar Ram Manohar Sinha.  It is said that the signed copies are kept in the safe vault of the Parliament Library in helium filled special cases.  Our Constitution of India is considered the longest hand written document of its kind in the world.


Shri Prem Behari Narain Raizada (Saxena) - (1901-1966)

This arduous task of writing 395 Articles and 12 Schedules was entrusted to Calligraphist Shri Prem Behari Naraian Raizada (Saxena) of Delhi. He comes from  a family of traditional Calligraphists specialised in Persian and English Calligraphy.  His grand father Master Ram Parshadji Saxena was a scholar in Persian and English, who taught Farsi (Persian) to British Government officials. His hand writing was a masterpiece of Calligraphy. Prem Behari's parants died when he was young, and he grewup under his grand father and uncle Mahashya Chatur Behari Narayan Saxena. Shri Prem Behari learnt Calligraphy from his grand father in the traditional way.

Shri Prem Behari Narain Raizada (Saxena)

While entrusting this important task of writing the Constitution to Shri Prem Behariji, it is said, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru asked him what he would like to charge as remuneration for the job.  Shri Prem Behari replied " Not a single penny I need, by the grace of God I have all things, and quite happy with my life. But I have one reservation, that on every page of Constitution I will write my name and on the last page I will write my name  along with my grand father's name". His request was granted and the Government of India allotted him a room in the Constitution House for this prestigious work.

Babu Rajendra Prasad with Prem Behariji

The writing of the Constitution in flowing italic style in the best Calligraphic tradition of our Country was completed by Shri Prem Behariji  in six months of hard work. He had used 254 pen holder "No.303" nibs for the job.  Shri Prem Behariji has used large and thick parchment paper of 16" by 12" size for his Calligraphy work. The decorative patterns embossed in Gold on the front and back covers of the leather bound volumes are said to be reminiscent of Ajanta Murals. The whole volume of 479 pages weighs 3.75 kg. Photolithographed Copies of the same were  made at the office of the Survey of India, Dehradun. Apart from the list of illustrations, the books do not contain detailed index.

Art work and illustrations.

Bull seal of Harappa

The  Art work and illustrations rendered in miniature style, twenty two in all, heads the Twenty two parts of the Constitution.  Each picture shown at the head of each Part of Constitution has its relevance and significance of the cultural History of the subcontinent, from the Mohenjadaro period to modern days. To begin with, Part I of the Constitution shows Zebu Bull seal of Harappa, representing Indus Valley Civilization. For Vedic period a scence from Gurukula, and Epic period, Sri Rama from Ramayana

Sri Rama, Sita and Lakshmana

and Gitopadesa from Mahabharata, there are incidents from the lives of Buddha and Mahavira follow in other Parts. Also scences from Ashoka, Vikramaditya, Mahabalipuram and historical figures of Akbar, Shivaji, Guru Gobind Singh, Rani Laxmibai and Tippoo Sultan are also shown in the drawings. The pictures of  Mahatma Gandhi and Netaji Subhash chandra Bose are the only representations of our Freedom movement. 

Nataraja of Chola period.

There is also picture of Art form  from Chola period master piece of Nataraja drawn in a line drawing. The last Part XXII carries scene of ocean the picture of  ancient sea faring vessels. 

Seafaring ships of Cholas

There are also few drawings of beautiful landscape of our Country included in the drawings. Borders of each page is embellished with beautiful decorative art work of Shantiniketan style. 

Last page 

The Constituent Assembly met in eleven sessions open to public for 165 days during the period of 2 years 11 months and 7 days and adopted the Constitution on November, 26, 1949. How ever in all the 284 members of Assembly signed the two hand written copies (one in English and the other in Hindi) only on January 24, 1950. There are 11 pages of these signatures which begins under the Eighth Schedule. First to sign was Jawaharlal Nehru and the last signature is that of Feroze Gandhi. Dr Rajendra Prasad President of the Constituent Assembly has signed  two signatures, one in English and other in Hindi. 

The Constitution of India came into force on January 26, 1950.

Jai Hind.