Final telegram

Yesterday I was reading some tweets on twitter about how people were nostalgic about exit of telegram. BSNL has decided to shut down it telegram service, it is certainly long due in this technology advance day.  We might ask question who used this service for last 10 years or so with the emergence of mobile, landline and also Internet. The whole landscape has changed, now the importance of words is lost with the end of telegram. Personally I have never sent anyone any telegram to know how it is used or how good or bad it was, but yes I have few memories associated with the telegram which I could never forget. It was all of school days, I don’t know about today school time but in 2003 and 2004 when I was in 9^th and 10^th standard we had telegram writing in our English writing course. For me it was on the learning curve which we could never understand at that age.

The basic rule of telegram Writing which I remember (It might not be accurate one)

• Every word and space is counted and you have to pay for even space also.
• It has to be written in capital words
• Instead of . (fullstop), you have to write STOP.

I was very fortunate to be good in writing section of English, because here you expression of words matter. You can’t memories it and just write it. Our English teacher Das mam, worked quite hard on us to make us better student. By that I mean she never forced anything as a teacher, she just let us be what we were and found space for our self. For me she was the teacher who changed the way I used to think about reading English subject.

Back to topic, with telegram writing I learned the importance of word and also how important is to communicate the thought in short format. You might not need enough word to express the feeling but you have to express the feeling in less word. That was the challenge for all of us in the school; we never thought what it would be like after 5 year when there might not be any need for it. 

Well I remember one sher which I read often, “ Naya pane ki chahat pe Purana choot jata hai, Jo tumse milne aao to jamana rooth jata hai”. I don’t know if today school have telegram writing in the curriculum or not but I hope they have, telegram writing can’t be replaced by SMS writing that is for sure. :)