From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Static Frequency (Bengali community radio serial)
This article is about the Kolkata community radio broadcast (2023–ongoing). For other audio-medium adaptations, see The Pulse Recorder (Audio Serial).
A fortnightly radio serial that embraces signal-weakness and interference as narrative apparatus. Each 30-minute episode retells the same events from a radically different perspective; contradictions mount as the series progresses.
Episode 1 features a nurse (modelled on Katita) describing arrival at a makeshift clinic; Episode 2 retells the same arrival from an engineer's perspective, fragmentary and confused. By Episode 6, both characters simultaneously broadcast over each other—voices creating interference patterns—until the listener cannot discern which version is "true." The production uses intensive Kolkata field-recording: street vendors, train sounds, prayer calls, hospital machinery. These sounds are not ambience; they are unreliable narrators. A heartbeat recorded in Episode 1 subtly changes rhythm by Episode 4. The sound of traffic grows louder, then quieter, then inaudible, then audible again—mirroring the cycle.
The work is explicitly positioned as a "listening experiment." Episodes can be heard in any order; the station invites listeners to phone in and report which version they found most convincing. “"The glitch is real in radio. Every broadcast is a different broadcast. Which one are you hearing right now?"”
The serial continues to attract devoted South Asian and diaspora listeners.