Kolkata, March 6 In August 1959, the iconic Bengali actor Suchitra Sen recorded a song in her own voice at the Gramophone Company office in Kolkata, leaving behind a rare 78 rpm ‘test record’.
After recording the song, ‘Bone Noy Aaj Mone Hoy…’, the composer and lyricist declared, "Take ok", clearing the test disc for cutting more copies for public release.
Decades earlier, in 1935, Rabindranath Tagore recorded a test disc of his poem ‘Jhulan’ at the same premises.
That recording, featuring the poet’s own voice, was released publicly five years later.
The 78 rpm (revolutions per minute) records are brittle shellac discs produced from 1898 to the late 1950s, rotating at a nominal speed of 78 revolutions per minute. Typically 10 or 12 inches in size, they hold 3–5 minutes of audio per side.
The era of records – from gramophone discs to cassettes and CDs – has long given way to the digital age.
Yet collectors continue to preserve these fragile pieces of history.
City-based collector Paramananda Chowdhury is among those who have devoted years to gathering such rare records.
His archive, numbering several hundred discs, includes Sen’s test recording and what he describes as the only test disc of Tagore reciting in his own voice.
Recording history in India dates back to 1902, when some of the earliest discs were cut. Soon after, recordings of legendary singer Gauhar Jaan began circulating widely.
Chowdhury told