The 163-year journey that the telegram traced and on reaching its final destination on July 14, has put a full stop to an era’s mode of communication. At a function organised at the Central Telegraph Office (CTO) to bid adieu to telegram on Monday, the humble telegraph machine lay dead and silent on the table while officers spoke nostalgically.
Even after retiring from the Central Telegraph Office (CTO) more than a decade ago, Louis Pereira cannot forget the British officers under whom he worked. He said they ensured prompt and disciplined work that remained with many officers.
“The 24-hour service needed all of us to be alert. Decoding the messages without any errors was essential. There have been occasions when messages for jail officials in Yerawada Jail from the president for cancellation or withholding of death sentences would leave us sweating and tense. The messenger had to be alerted immediately and he had to rush without delay to stop the hanging.”
Having been a messenger for 35 years, Sitaram Raskar, lovingly called as ‘Raskar Mama’, gives full credit to his sound health to the endless kms of cycling he had done.
Cycling for five hours and covering more than 30 km is no big deal for Raskar “The khakhi-clad person with a cycle was respected like a VIP back then. Often, the houses used to offer us water and snacks, typically jaggery.”
“The duty time for us to deliver one set of messages was five hours and delay invited penalty,” said Raskar, adding, “There used to be competition among us to get an additional pay of 10 paise incentive.”
The CTO, in its happy days, used to send more than 800 telegram messages through its 50 plus messengers.
Serving at CTO for 30 years and now with the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Sanjay Pawar said, “Despite our limited knowledge in English, we were experts in reading and conveying the messages to the common man. Often, delivering messages in the slums and red light areas was tedious and an uphill task for any messenger, who is often the soft target on delivering news of deaths. Finding the address in slums was never an easy task. Secondly, the people being illiterate, we often had to read out the messages to them.”
“The CTO, in its heydays, had a staff strength of 350 employees and the city overall had 500 plus employees. But in the ante-climax picture, CTO had just five telegraph employees,” said Pereira. Pawar only wishes that the Customer Service Centre survives.
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