Telegram - An unknown mode of communication 😊

During a small walk around our town, Tirunelveli, we, as a group, took a small halt near the oldest post office of the town and a dead telegraph office nearby. 😇

Post offices are known to children by one way or the other. But Telegraph Offices are not due to its extinction. The purpose of telegraph office was explained to the kids and that is how they got introduced to the other related term "telegram." In Tamil, it is called as "Thanthi" (தந்தி). 😐

This was the fastest mode of communication, say three decades ago, when there were no telephones. A family would receive telegram only when it was extremely important and in almost all cases, intimation of someone's death would be it. Because for rest of the important matters, time constraint would not be an issue. So, when a family receives "Thanthi", everyone would naturally panic. This can be better understood by today's generation by relating it to the cell phone calls families receive at odd hours. 💔

The Telegram messages would be as short as possible for every word was charged. I had a relative who used to work as post-master and he was the only one to send wishes after every annual exam via telegram. Otherwise only economically sound families used the service to send greetings and wishes to their loved ones. 💗

After the entry of telephones, mobile phones and internet, the use of telegram started declining very fast and the government found it economically non-profitable to still run that department. Therefore, in 2013, India decided to bid good-bye to the age-old telegraph offices and thereby bringing the telegram services to an end! 💔

The government kept the office open for everyone to use this service one last time. A service that was almost always used to share the terrible news across friends and family, was at last used to share some good moments. People thronged telegraph offices to create a memory of their own by sending telegrams to their loved ones across the country. They were equally thrilled to receive one. There were unusual long queues on the last week, and particularly the last day! 😊

It was so heartening to see how people are emotionally driven when something is about to become past, just a memory. After all, we all are bound by love! 💖

The small walk randomly brought these thoughts! :-)