As some readers may know from my previous column: I took Amma, Indu Shedde, 98 years, on a memory trip to our hometown Dharwad, Karnataka, in July. It’s where she grew up: After over 50 years, we visited her primary school, Kittur Chennamma Park, and Ice Factory/Ice Gate, her favourite ice cream parlour. Highlights included when I took her to Karnatak University Library, where she had worked as Assistant Librarian in the 1950s. I also arranged to have her interviewed on All India Radio (AIR), Dharwad.

Amma was interviewed twice on AIR, first in Kannada by the lovely Mala Sambrani, and again in Konkani, our mother tongue, by Chetan Naik. Amma’s sister Kamala Divgi, whom we called Kanna Pachchi, had worked in AIR. “For the inauguration of the AIR Dharwad service, they had invited Bismillah Khan, Bhimsen Joshi and other artists: Joshi, Mallikarjun Mansur, Gangubai Hangal, among others, were based in and performed in Dharwad,” Amma recalled. “When Bhimsen Joshi sang, he typically made faces while singing, and the children in the audience laughed so much at this, the radio transmission was suspended for two mins. Our grandmother, Aai, listening to the radio at home, wondered what happened. Having lived with kerosene lamps lifelong, electricity was a fancy new thing: they specially installed an electric pole nearby to get electricity to play the radio and hear Kanna Pachchi.