A 8 p.m. on a Wednesday in 1954, in a middle-class family in Chennai, a 12-year-old girl and her younger brother were glued to their radio set, waiting to listen to their favourite “Binaca Geet Mala”, ...

It all began in the winter of 1952. Honchos of a top ad company were planning on Radio Ceylon, a show of Hindi film songs for its client, a chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate widely known in ...