By August the heat had lessened, about the only relief in our existence that summer of 1947. While most of our acquaintances had fled, a few intrepid families had remained in Peshawar. Food was scarce and with all our inventiveness, there was little my mother could do with yellowing vegetables and a stock of tinned meat. Curfew had been clamped on the city from July. And with the cessation of all social activity, we had to endure immense boredom.In our housebound wilderness, diversion arrived on the morning of August 9. A young programme assistant from All India Radio asked if I would compere that Saturday night's Western music programme, adding ingenuously that the other two casual `voices' had left town. I was bored to tears and jumped at the offer.On the night of August 10, chaperoned by both my sisters, the AIR car conveyed me through silent, deserted roads towards Shahi Bagh, an elite area where lay the Pashawar Gold Club, the Peshawar Radio station. and the ancient Peshawar Zoo.I was asked to select a dance music programme and searched the records cupboard. A script was written and passed. I cannot remember with what numbers I treated Peshawar's listeners, if any, but I still have occasion to wonder why I ended with Vera Lynn singing We'll Meet Again. The broadcast over, and thanked by the station director in person, we were driven home through empty roads, with me clutching a cheque for Rs 20 in my palm.The three days to August 15 passed swiftly. Like most others in the country, we didn't know how to react to the inevitability of partition. Newspapers reported increasing violence. The Northwest Frontier province, quiet at that time, would make its own contribution to massacre and mayhem later on.Newsreaders began to sound shrill, harried and hysterical. And Delhi's Home Service began to broadcast interminable lists of names of refugees pouring into the camps. There was no sign of curfew being relaxed.We spent all of August 14 anxiously listening to Karachi, Lahore and Delhi in turn, beginning to get infected by the palpable agitation. Midnight found us crowded around the radio for the relay from Delhi. Familiar voices of leaders uttering weighty words and solemn pledges came over the ether. And then it was over. The country had been sundered and two nations were born. The sense of an ending was stronger than that of a new beginning, tinged as this thrill was with anxiety and regret.The evening of August 17 found me back at the radio station to compere the Saturday classical music half-hour. Material was limited, but I got together what I then thought of as `classical'. Anyway, no one would challenge my choice.The script, however, was a different matter. My query about how to word the opening announcement, now that we weren't AIR any more, caused consternation and panic. Agitated confabulations between finally resulted in: "This is the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, Peshawar."Till that evening, I hadn't heard of either Benno Moiseiwitsch or Baniamino Gigli. A little thought and a deep breath later, the great pianist had been given a new dimension to his name. And the Italian tenor was similarly dealt with. Between records, a second announcement note saying, "You are listening to Radio Pakistan, Peshawar," was sent to me, to undo the confusion.If the texture of the August 17 night broadcast was best erased from memory, one indisputable fact remains memorable. In a small but significant way, I shared in the broadcasting history of Peshawar. The last time the standard station identification "This is All India Radio" went on the air, it was in my voice, as was the first English announcement the following week, from the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, Peshawar.
