This morning when I drew a list of ‘to do’ ~ this featured on the top of
the agenda and reading it did bring in a wry smile……. ~ I did complete the
agenda, rushed back home and waited eagerly for the man to come calling…. A
person to whom the whole India waited in the morning ….. in every cinema you
can see aged people waiting for him to deliver a message….. 3 decades ago, it
was the King……… but the service has lost millions once the cellphone, email,
SMS and other technologies galvanized Indian population. The nearly empty
telegraph office is a pale shadow of what it was once !
There are times when feel
anguished – when a particular thing ceases to exist…..though we know that
things are not permanent, all will change and only change is permanent… there
is some mental block to accept most changes… modern day youngsters may not understand
the importance and the way certain things co-existed or the way we grew up in
our younger days……… I entered this
building today ~ already it was forlorn… not many used this service in the past
few years…. Sad it could not fight obsolescence …. Irony that it was associated
with speed once…. Things are relative in life… for a second thought what would happen to once
busy building ~ the workforce got reduced over the years……..
A few decades ago, the
Post Office in every area was the most visited place – it used to be always
busy…… people used to communicate through letters [post cards / inland letters
/ covers and the like…] – when was the last time, you ever wrote a letter
[handwritten] to your relative or to
your friend – a few decades ago, that was the most chosen form of
communication…. Caring parents would send off their wards telling ‘drop a
letter immediately upon reaching the place’ … almost all official communication
was by way of typed letters with signature of authorized persons. Then there was this telegram – the most
efficient and speedy communication of message[of those days] ….. ‘telegrams’
used to cost high and hence only most important things would be sent by
telegram and people used ‘short words / abbreviations’ for conveying as
telegram was charged per word.
Those people were
thoughtful in saving money in every possible way and hence when it came to
sending telegrams the first thought was ‘how to save Words; the right
way is economical, the wrong way, wasteful. If the telegram was to be packed full of unnecessary words, words which
might be omitted without impairing the sense of the message, the sender was
guilty of economic waste. ….. there was this ‘Telegram style, telegraph style’,
a clipped way of writing that attempts to abbreviate words and pack as much
information into the shortest possible number of words and or characters. For long
mankind had been using abbreviations and code words and this came in handy to
compress the meaning of phrases into a small set of characters for ease of
transmission over a telegraph, which those days revolutionized the way people
communicated…………… much faster and most important decisions were conveyed
through telegrams. Do you know
that “The term STOP was used in telegrams in place of the full stop. The end of
a sentence would be marked by STOP, because punctuation cost extra”.. Read
that the first message Samuel F B Morse sent from Washington to Baltimore was way back in May 24, 1844. Morse was the one who invented the system of
sending text messages over long distances by assigning each alphabet a unique
sequence of dots and dashes.
In India, telegram had been overtly official in
communicating selection process and ………. At homes, the arrival of postman
carrying telegram was dreaded for many a times, sad messages used to be delivered
through telegram………. In those olden days, one could obtain a train [air too !]
ticket by showing the telegram…. !! ~
and people used them for obtaining ‘leave’ in office too; some young lovers
caused heartbreak to their parents by informing their elopement….. In Insurance field, Development Officers and Agents
used to send telegrams to Office about collection of premium [especially in
Friday evenings after office hours and on holidays] as a proof of collection
and to ensure compliance of Sec 64VB of Insurance Act.
It was at somepoint the
backbone and most trusted official communication, now after 163 years, it is
about to experience a painful ‘full STOP’ – when was the last time you saw a
Postal worker delivering a letter at your door – in most flats you see them in
your box [or worser still lying down] – and do you remember the postman coming
in a cycle to deliver that ‘telegram’. On Monday, 15th July 2013, the
state-run telecommunications will send its final telegram, closing down a
service that fast became a relic in an age of email, reliable landlines and
ubiquitous cellphones.
The Government till today has been using telegrams to inform recipients of top civilian awards and
for court notices. Fearing that the younger generation at home, might never see
one in their lifetime, today morning [13th July 2013] I walked into
Telegraph Office, Mount Road, Chennai Road and booked a telegram to my son………
it cost only Rs.28/- [somehow it has not
been delivered at home till this moment of posting this at 0930 pm]
Before concluding read in
the Hindu that the Madras High Court
bench on Thursday ordered notice to the
Ministry of Telecommunication and Bharat Sanchar Nigam limited (BSNL) on two
public interest litigation petitions that sought restoration and continuance of
the telegram service in India. The petitioners contend that the BSNL failed to
consider the rural masses before scrapping the telegram service. The petitioner,
a Madurai-based advocate, claimed that 70 per cent of India’s population lived
in the rural areas where communication through mobile phones and email had not
reached. “Telegram is also an integral mode of communication for the lawyers,
litigants, armed force and police. Urgent interim orders in habeas corpus, bail
and civil cases are normally communicated by the court through telegram. The
armed police personnel extend their leave through telegram,” he contended. The other petitioner alleged that the BSNL
gave a ‘stepmotherly treatment’ to the telegram service before scrapping it. He states that BSNL should have made it more
cheaper to attract people but instead raised the rates. The petitioners pleaded the court to direct
the BSNL to restore the telegram service and hand it over to the Postal
Department.
Most unlikely
that the telegram would survive. The first telegram in India was transmitted
between Calcutta and Diamond Harbour on November 5, 1850; the service was
opened for the public.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar.
13th July 2013…..
@ 2130 hrs.
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