MANGALORE: According to Wikipedia, Rabindranath Tagore coined the word Akashavani, which found wide acceptance only after 1956. All India Radio (AIR), Mysore, celebrating the diamond jubilee of the radio broadcast in September this year, officially gave due credit to Prof M V Gopalaswamy, who taught psychology at Mysore University, for coining the word in 1935.
The debate has, however, intensified with 70-year-old Anuradhagiri Rao from Udupi declaring that her father, retired district education officer (late) Hosbet Rama Rao, was the founder of the word in 1932. Despite age-related illnesses, she has been knocking on doors of powers-that-be, clutching documents and demanding recognition due to her father.
Rama Rao (1900-85), while serving as a teacher at the Government College, Mangalore, goaded by then principal Dr Savoor, anonymously published a 15-20 page booklet, Akashavani. The simple white booklet, unravelling the phenomenon of the radio set, was well received by the literate. “Why the name Akashavani?” she remembers asking.
Quoting her father, she said that Rao drew inspiration from mythology in Kamsa’s case when an ‘ashariravani’ (voice without body) predicts his death. “Thus , voice from the akasha (sky) was Akashavani, meaning celestial voice,” she says. Rao, who was beginning to establish himself as a writer of repute, had not revealed his name fearing victimisation from then British Government.
However, the same book was duly acknowledged and adopted as a non-detailed Kannada text book for high school students by the textbook committee of Madras Presidency.
The book was printed twice in 1941 and 1945. Her demand for recognition to father was further bolstered by an editorial that appeared in the Indian Express in February 18, 1997. “The well-researched editorial written on the occasion of the diamond jubilee of Akashavani had pointed out that the name was taken from an article by an unknown writer,” she recollects, adding that the anonymous writer was none other than her father.
Despite a muted response, she is hopeful that all her efforts will pay off someday.