Wire We Here?

Nostalgia for the OG Telegram

“Telegram was blocked for a few days,” I informed Kamala, as I handed her a cup of coffee. I then pulled out a fraying brownish folded piece of paper from my old diary. The original telegram. This particular one said: Baby Boy. Both well. 

I smiled, as we both remembered the good old days of letters and telegrams. The telegram taught us to communicate the most important news with the least number of words. Charges were per word and so we chose our words carefully. No preamble, no salutation, no rambling, no decoration. Crisp, concise communication. “I wish some world leaders would be required to voice their thoughts, succinctly, only through these telegrams,” Kamala wistfully said, pulling out her Trump card. “We could then finish unnecessary wars a lot earlier.”

Both of us meandered nostalgically through those sepia-tinted days of the telegram. Announcements of a marriage, joy of a successful job interview, or an addition to the family, or worry about an illness, were all, invariably, conveyed quickly by this method. For 163 years, the telegram brought both good news and bad news into Indian homes. The postman got dressed in a classical khaki uniform and then rode up on a bicycle and shouted out the word “Telegram!!” Pulses would race and hearts would thump in anticipation, as the (un)familiar piece of paper was opened. Like cinema, the expression on the face of the family member reading the telegram, would reveal the nature of the news. The words were like bullets – sharp, precise and targeted. Father serious. Come soon. 

No flowery sentences, no rodomontade, no exasperating farrago of vexing vocabulary – Tharoorisms in a telegram would be an unacceptable ostentation. Of course this was much before people started spelling good morning as gud mng. Or had the entire world news easily delivered to the screen of their mobile phone. 

Meanwhile, the modern-day Telegram was temporarily banned in India, years after the original telegram became defunct on July 14, 2013. Why? Because when last month’s NEET exam saw leakages and other glitches, the young kid on the block, Telegram Junior, got blamed for a lot of it. The message was to plug the leaks, the messenger was shot instead. If edmin were to get an old-fashioned telegram summarising this situation, it would probably read: Students serious. System unwell. Adults missing. 

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