HYDERABAD: Radios from before independence. Gramophones from the 1800s. Cassette players from the early 2000s. A record player that dates back to the 1960s. Inside Mahboob Radio Service, time isn’t linear. It overlaps, intersects and runs simultaneously, almost like some postmodern novel. Perhaps it is a plot of a postmodern novel, telling stories of a Murphy from the 1930s that sits beside a Philips from the 1940s. A television set from the 1950s that rests near a tape recorder or a VLC player from the 1980s. Different eras, all still working, all waiting for someone to press play.
Md Moinuddin, 76, runs the store in Chatta Bazaar, past the wedding card shops. He sits on a stool outside, sometimes at his wooden table under a yellow lamp. Opposite, above an old cabinet, a vintage mirror, once used to repair television screens. “I would look in the mirror and see the placement of the TV,” he says, sitting beneath the 110-year-old iron beams. Wistfully narrating the art of fixing things.
On World Radio Day, and as the world celebrates on Wednesday the medium that once connected continents, the store feels like a living museum. Marconi’s first wireless transmission was in 1857, the golden age of RCA and Murphy, the transistor revolution, a Bush. These names were once spoken like they meant something. Now, they are kept alive only by those who refuse to let them fade.
“Earlier, things were made to last, it was what made the brand image. Now they are made to make money,” Mohinuddin says. A German-made set switches on. A brief crackle, then a song from another time. “This one’s 140 years old,” he says. He points to another, “This one’s 120.”
Moinuddin has been in the business for decades. His father and elder brother ran it before him. People still buy radios, but not for the same reasons. “They come for antiques,” he said. “They want to keep them in showcases.” Some are collectors, some here to repair, others nostalgic visitors are drawn, or here to sell their antiques, or sell them.
Mohinuddin pulls out a photograph. A vintage Hillman Minx car, once owned by actress Nargis Dutt. “This is at my home,” he says. Like the radios, it still runs. Keeping it that way isn’t easy. “Old things take effort. Not everyone has patience for that.”
The conversation circles back to radios. He tunes a Murphy again. The music plays, grainy, distant, yet intact. “This is from 1857,” he says. “Still works.”
Mahboob Radio Service is among the last of its kind in Hyderabad. Once, Dabirpura had shops like his, where televisions, radios and record players could be fixed instead of thrown away. “We used to make TV, VCR, radios,” he recalls. Now, with LCDs and LEDs taking over, repair has become an afterthought. However, Moiuddin still gets customers from Hyderabad, across India, even London and America. Some bring family heirlooms, others hunt for rare models. A Murphy might cost `6,000, a Bush radio `8,000 and a gramophone `10,000. “People come to see,” he says. “They don’t know these things can still work.”
“These things won’t last long, they say,” he says. Then, after a pause, “But they will make a comeback.”
