Wishing goodbye to the telegram
With the 160-yr-old service closing from July 15, people queue up to send wires and be a part of history
LUCKNOW: Mamta Bisht and her son Raajveer Singh Bisht, a student of Class 6 in La Martiniere College, walk enthusiastically to the telegraph window at the GPO. Taking a few forms, the duo writes some messages. The mother gives the forms a last read and hands them to the telegraphist.
There are ‘miss you’ messages for grandparents in Haldwani, love greetings for cousins in Delhi and a telegram for Raajveer from his mother.
As the 160-year-old telegram service in India - once the quickest way of staying in touch - marches towards its last journey, people are queuing up in front of telegram offices to be part of history. The last telegram at Lucknow GPO would be booked till 9pm on July 14.
“I just wanted my son to know what a telegram is and how it is sent. I am sending him a telegram so that he can keep it with himself as a souvenir,” said Mamta.
In addition to the regular breed of users, advocates, bankers, recovery agents, armymen and those who needs proof of communicating with another, those queuing up at the telegram windows are the ones who want to experience the old practice.
A final year student of Delhi University took five forms and began to write on them.
“I want to send wires to my friends and relatives before the services end. Just wanted to experience telegram about which I have been hearing from my parents,” the student said.
While most of the people are visiting the telegram office for the first time, they are not holding back when it comes to the number of messages. “I wanted to preserve something that would soon be dead,” said another sender who wrote -’Now forget telegram. Keep it as a memoir’, on several forms and sent the message to his near and dear ones.
Brij Nandan, who has been serving at the telegram office for 39 years now, narrated his nostalgia. “I have seen the glorious period of the telegram service. The office would function 24 hours and get hundreds of telegrams each day. There used to be so much variety in the messages, ranging from a relative’s illness to a child’s admission, results and a lot more.”
Having worked on the old Morse code machine and then the teleprinters and finally the adoption of web-based system for telegrams, he recalled, “There were messages from met department issuing warnings to railways and district magistrates. Then there were intimations about the President cancelling a death sentence, the message for which usually came at 12 midnight.”
The Morse and teleprinters no longer exist. Old employees said that they had been sent to stores for auction and might no longer be in the department. But at GPO alone, about 3,000 telegrams were sent last month. The numbers have gone up ever since the closure of the service was announced.