Obituary - Rekha Bahen, the announcer who had pioneered the biggest Troops’ Program of AIR, passes away!

Mrs. Bimlesh Arya, the first Hindi Announcer of AIR Guwahati passed away on 17-September 2020 due to old age ailments, at the age of 80, in her hometown Bareilly. She had joined the Hindi section of AIR Guwahati in 1964 and had retired from her services from the same station on 31-Dec 2000. 

1964 was the time when after the Sino-Indian war, the movement of troops increased in the North-East. With the inception of the second primary channel of AIR Guwahati, a substantially big broadcast for entertaining the troops of the region was planned on this “B-Channel” of AIR Guwahati. Bimlesh Arya being the first and the senior-most Hindi announcer, played an instrumental role in designing the broadcast that spanned across the afternoon and evening transmissions for a daily total duration of 2 hours 20 minutes (12:30 PM to 2:10 PM, 5:05 PM to 5:45 PM). This was the largest Troops program of All India Radio in the entire nation (and it continues to be till date) not only in terms of its duration but also in terms of the variety of programs that it comprised of. The daily, weekly and monthly programs within this Troops’ broadcast totaled to the figure of 35, all based on Hindi film music but varied on the basis of genre, artistes, themes, requests, and so on. This was unlike Troops’ program of other stations, which played mixed film songs or simple request based film songs for a duration of around 30 to 45 minutes. Due to its vastness, completeness, uniqueness and film music oriented nature, the program attained immense popularity among the masses and remained one of the most listened to broadcasts over the next four decades. Soon, Bimlesh Arya was joined by other two Hindi announcers, Tapasi Sengupta and Sadhana Phukan. While Mrs. Arya retired in 2000, Mrs. Sengupta and Mrs. Phukan continued till the end of that decade. The broadcast was popular not only among the troops, but also among the civilians, and the three voices had become household voices in the afternoon. In the absence of any other source of film music on the Medium Wave band in those days, this 2.5 hours daily broadcast of Hindi film music was like something that listeners would not like to miss out. 

Now one might wonder why the title of this post bears the name “Rekha Bahen”! Well, there is an interesting history behind this. When Mrs. Arya, and subsequently Mrs. Sengupta & Mrs. Phukan joined AIR, they all were young ladies in their early twenties. Guwahati was a small city and the broadcast was for the troops, the young military personnel. So, the then Station Director of AIR Guwahati felt that the identity of the three announcers needs to be protected. He came up with an idea of giving virtual names to them. Keeping in mind the target audience of the program, meaningful names were thought off. And in this way, Mrs. Arya was named Rekha Bahen, Mrs. Sengupta was named Seema Bahen, and Mrs. Phukan was named Meeta Bahen. The names Rekha and Seema signifies the border and the name Meeta defines friendship and bonding. Till the end of their services, they continued introducing themselves with these virtual names and most of the listeners don’t even know their real names till date. 

After mesmerizing the listeners and entertaining the troops (in other words, servicing the nation) for over 35 years, all three of them retired from their services, handing over the broadcast to the Casual announcers, who are trying their level best to keep the tradition and heritage alive in spite of several problems and issues. With the demise of Bimlesh Arya, alias Rekha Bahen, it feels as if a complete era has passed by. May her soul rest in eternal peace!

Contributed by :- Shri. Sujoy Chatterjee 

soojoi_india@yahoo.co.in