India Telegraph To Close

End of an Era - India Telegraph Services to Close

After serving the nation for almost 160 years the Indian Telegraph service will be closed from July 15th 2013. This is surely a sign of the communication revolution that happened in the country in the late nineties and last decade.

When I was growing up phones were not a necessity, they were not even a luxury, they were a symbol of power. Only who's who of the country had phones in their homes, and that to in major cities. For the hinterland and remote areas the postcard was the only means of communications which could take days or even weeks to arrive. 

The telegram was the messenger of bad news, only to be used when some body in the family was not well or worse still no more. A knock on the door by the postman to deliver a telegram was enough to make the women of the family cry. Not only the telegram was the messenger of bad news, it was also prohibitively costly for the common man to use it, with the charges being per letter typed. This lead to creation of a whole series of Telegram jokes, much before Santa Banta Jokes became all the rage. 

When was the last time you read or  heard a telegram joke? If you find one please send it to me.

I guess no body will miss that knock from the postman in this age of Facebook updates and instant SMS.

So good bye dear telegram, rest in peace. May you become a distant memory of times gone by.