The Free Radio is short story written by Famous author, Salman Rushdie. The main theme of story is Self – Deception and Gender bias. The Free Radio was originally published in 1994.
The Free Radio By Salman Rushdie
Summary of The Free Radio By Salman Rushdie
Before starting story, I want my readers to know about a Truth which you may have never heard before. Your parents may know about it but you may not. Before reading Free Radio, you should know what happened in India in 1975. At that time India prime minister was Shrimati Indira Gandhi. She had one son named Sanjay Gandhi.
To decrease the population of India, Indira Gandhi’s son, Sanjay Gandhi took very strict action. Sanjay Gandhi does a sterilization of poor peoples in India. He does at large scale to decrease the population of India.
The police used to forcefully capture people for their sterilization. And according to reports 6.2 million people were sterilized. Many people had died during operation of sterilization. Salman Rushdie has discussed about this incident in many of his work. The Free Radio story is also based on same incident.
Salman Rushdie’s “The Free Radio” story begins with character, Ramani, a beautiful boy who is a Rickshaw puller. Ramani is an orphaned boy. The story now introduces two more character, first character is thief’s widow, a very clever lady who husband was thief. Her husband is no more. The third character is Narrator who is a retired teacher. The Narrator has a good reputation in society and everyone respect him.
The Narrator knew Ramani’s mother and father. So that is why Narrator worries about Ramani and look after him. According to Narrator, Ramani is simple and innocent man and has no understanding of the world. The Narrator believe anyone can fool Ramani as he is very innocent.
Thief’s widow is 10 years older than Ramani and she has five children. Thief’s widow tricked Ramani in her love and Ramani started roaming with her whole day. The Narrator doesn’t like it and he wants widow to leave Ramani. Narrator doubts that widow is prostitute it is not confirmed yet but narrator has full doubt on her.
Ramani is becoming a bad person day after day, he started sitting with bad people. He became friend with very bad and gangster people. Ramani also started drinking and gambling. The Narrator tried his best to take Ramani out from bad environment but he doesn’t listen to him. Ramani’s friends are wearing an arm bands of Youth Movement.
Narrator has doubt that Ramani’s friends do a sterilization of people forcefully. Ramani’s friends always does flattering of him. Ramani friends tells him that he is very handsome and he should be a film star. Ramani’s friends does his flattering to drink on his money. On the other side, widow also does a flattering of Ramani, and tell him that he should be a film star.
One day, Narrator could not tolerate and decides to talk with Widow at Baniya’s shop. Narrator is doing all these things for Ramani’s dead mother and father. Narrator wants Ramani to walk in virtue’s way. Narrator gives warning to Widow to stay away from Ramani but Widow doesn’t listen to him and started fighting with him. Thief’s widow replied, lemme tell you one thing that Ramani wants to marry me but I denied his proposal because I don’t want any children while Ramani is young man so he should have one or two. Afterwards, Narrator decides that he won’t interfere much in Ramani’s life.
Ramani wants to do his sterilization as after sterilization he would get free radio. Ramani does his sterilization and also married thief’s widow. Ramani tells Narrator that his wife don’t want any children so that is why he did his sterilization. Apart from this he would also receive a free radio from government. The Narrator feels pity for Ramani because he knows Ramani is an innocent person and doesn’t know what he did to his body.
The Narrator knows Free Radio scheme has expired a long time ago so Ramani wouldn’t receive any free radio. But Narrator doesn’t tell this to Ramani. On the other side, Ramani is very excited for radio. Ramani is desperately waiting for Free Radio and his excitement is increasing day after day.
When Ramani doesn’t receive any radio, he decides to talk with officer about Radio. But Ramani’s own friend beat him and kick him out from government office. Ramani’s friends beat him because they work to do sterilization of people and beat people if they doesn’t listen to them.
One day, Ramani tells Narrator that he is selling his Rickshaw and going Bombay with family to become a big film star. After few months, Narrator received a letter from Ramani. When Narrator started reading letter, he understand that letter is written by professional person as Ramani isn’t educated and can’t do writing. Through letter, Narrator learns that Ramani has become a Superstar and has money in abundance. And he is living a happy life.