I often ask my parents, who have witnessed World War II, Indian Independence, Partition, annexure of princely states into Indian Union, formation of linguistic states, formation of Capital cities, mass migration, Green Revolution, White Revolution, Emergency and other political changes and economic reforms, as to how it feels to witness history and how they perceived it as they went through it.
While my dad philosophically states that “today’s news is tomorrow’s history”, my mom gives an elaborate account of what she had experienced. But their replies are not convincing. While change is constant in any society and I have also seen a lot of changes viz., political, social, economical and technological, never had I felt, I was witnessing history. The news that tomorrow (15.7.13) would be the last day for TELEGRAMS, makes me sad and feel “I am witnessing history”.
When I was young, my dad regularly received telegrams. They were all official. It was the fastest mode of written communication. They were pink in colour with messages typed in bold letters on white strips of paper, which were stuck to the pink paper mostly with glue made of starch. (When I read about the closure of telegram service, I searched for the old telegrams at home, but could not trace any). Later, with computerization, the telegrams were printed on white sheets of paper using dot-matrix printers. I have preserved the one and only telegram I have received in my life, from my childhood friend, inviting me to her wedding. I am sharing the scanned copy of the telegram:
When I started working, everyday, we sent telegrams officially. Sometimes we sent them from the post office and many times, we sent over phone, which was called “Phonograms”. It was believed that telegrams had more legal weightage than any other form of communication. There were standard phrases to facilitate sending of telegrams at economical rates. These standard phrases had numbers assigned to it and all one had to do was quote/write the number and the respective message would be sent to the receiver. These phrases were also printed in diaries.
Also, many organizations registered their addresses with the department of telegraphs and obtained ‘GRAMS’ which was nothing but abbreviated address. This helped in cost reduction of telegrams, as the charge was directly proportionate to the number of words used.
Telegrams have also lent their name to a form of speech called Telegraphic speech. It is generally referred to a compressed style of speaking with just nouns and verbs and without conjunctions and articles.
From tomorrow, all this would become history.
The dialogue “Sir Telegram/Thanthi/Taar”, which was most crucial in climax scenes, would cease from Indian films.
My sister sent telegrams to all my nieces and nephews as a memento. The person who came to deliver them was very optimistic that the telegraph employees’ union would get a stay order on the closure and that the service would continue. Let’s wait and watch.
