The trend started in the early 1950s, when a mica businessman named Rameshwar Prasad Barnwal started mailing 20-25 song requests to Radio Ceylon daily. Regularly hearing Barnwal's name on the radio inspired the paan-shop owner Ganga Prasad Magadhiya and Electronics Shop Owner of Nandlal Sinha to similarly mail a large number of song requests. The growing fame of these three Jhumri Telaiya residents led to the emergence of a song-request fad among the people of the town. Young listeners from the town would compete among themselves to send out the most song requests in a day or month. The radio listeners thus became familiar with the town of Jhumri Telaiya. In the 1980s, a radio listeners' club was formed in the town. Subsequently, other towns also started competing with Jhumari Telaiya by sending out a large number of song requests. The fad declined as television gained popularity, and postal costs increased.