Sniff. Cough. Wheeze.
Quite pleased with this longish cover story in last weekend’s Lounge. Too long to cut and paste the whole thing here. But here is a little amuse bouche of the story and a link to download the pdf of the two-page spread.
Have a terrible cold. So don’t expect anything cheery for a day or two. Or week. Sigh.
—
The telegram is dying
After a century and a half of binding the country together, the messenger of the masses is slowly becoming a remnant of the past
Shruti Chakraborty and Sidin Vadukut
On a recent weekday evening in south Mumbai, the Central Telegraph Office (CTO), a stone’s throw from the raucous Flora Fountain traffic circle, is abuzz with noise—not of customers but carpentry work. CTO, one of the district’s many heritage buildings with solid stone facades, humbly stands in the shadow of the considerably taller Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) office behind it. The MTNL office itself is overshadowed by the even taller and more imposing Videsh Sanchar Bhavan tower next door that houses VSNL offices. The three form a pecking order of telecom offices—from the swanky Tata-owned building at one end to the sad, sorry old CTO at the other.
Finding the telegraph counter in CTO means walking through an unmanned metal detector, past a dark, gloomy foyer, which is being converted into what looks like a modern bank with counters and glass partitions between them, and into a narrow corridor on the right.
There is not a single customer in sight. When asked for a telegram form, there is a moment of hesitation before one of the two employees behind the counter gets up and hands a piece of paper through the slot—it is a telegram application form that doesn’t look much younger than the CTO building itself.
“The telegram business has gone down a lot. Before, we used to send 1,000 a day. Nowadays, we get 100, sometimes 200,” explains a portly man behind the counter with a smile on his face. He counts the words on the filled-in form handed to him, checks on a laminated sheet of paper for the charges—Rs26 for overnight delivery of a 22-word telegram to Delhi—and then he hands back a counterfoil.
But when he checks the billing machine at the counter, he looks a little embarrassed. It was a few minutes past 5 in the evening, the end of a working day, and the Mumbai CTO had only sent 37 telegrams the whole day. Visibly upset, he quickly says: “We will send more today. We are open 24 hours for your service you know. Maybe some more people will come.”
In all likelihood, however, they won’t.
—
You could read the story online here. But I’d rather you download the PDF here. And no there aren’t any jokes in it. So for your daily dose of amusement you may want to revert to the dependable people at Newsmax.
hmm STOP STOP STOP feel sad about the dwindling use of the Telegraph STOP Although Ive never had the need to use it STOP I’ve seen it only in old movies and read about it in books like Agatha Chritie in which it was used to send emergency messages STOP
I hope we do not forget the almost-there services like sending letters, writing postcards, etc for the Electronic Medium STOP
Hey!Try the phonogram ie calling up BSNL and sending a telegram to someone.
I am sure they are much better off the going-to-telegraph-office types telegram.
You have all those codes 50/100 etc and messages like “May the heaven’s choicest blessings shower on the young couple”
Check BSNL directory and you get this list.
-Nikhil
The telegram is dying – that’s like saying that the abacus is on its way out.
Dude,Stop doing cover stories which have been done by media persons for 1-2 years now .
how many times we shud read the same crap ….
ya its dying 10 ppl have already wrote abt it .
– Do a story on pager’s in India, where have they gone.
wud be a cool story and someone might give u money for the case study as well
PS : btw I read everything u write !!!
– Do write back
That was a nice article. Since I am into the communicatios industry (More precisely Wi-Fi Systems), its interesting to read the article especially, when you see how much data is being transmitted wirelessly, these days.
It is also interesting to note the 250 Crores loss made by the department – yearly. This reinforces the fact that we have not been having any accountibility at all in certain segments. The real-estate dialogue by the guy is the peak of hallucination! It is high time we demand accountability as responsible citizens.
Even your non-humorous posts are interesting. Keep writing them!
Destination Infinity
Sadly, it’s called product life-cycle. Right there with record players, rotary telephones, and to a degree, even letter writing.
[…] to Newsmax via Domain Maximus. Like it? Share it! $Launchpad.ShowButton({“userId”: “48c0d963472245a7”, “widgetName”: […]
“We are open 24 hours for your service you know. Maybe some more people will come.”
In all likelihood, however, they won’t.
– Or in all likelihood, they don’t know!
I liked reading that article in Lounge, ya, the Telegram one! 🙂
What’s interesting is how the Post Office has also reinvented itself to cope with the proliferation of email. Rather than person-to-person communication, the goold old PO is now more of a B2C and B2B communication agent. They deliver magazines, direct mailers, all much cheaper than courier companies. And they also do door-to-door sales!
[…] The telegram is dying. Achoo! And so am I. […]
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