Telegram: Matter Serious, No Hope

From smoke signals and cave paintings, used centuries ago, to the latest instant services messages, like SMS, email and fax, communication has undergone a metamorphosis few would have foreseen. In the arena of telecommunication, history is witness to the falling of many a gladiator that once stood tall commanding the awe of anyone who witnessed it. July 15 will witness the fall of a humble giant who conveyed both good and bad news with professional ease and speed — the telegram. The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has decided to discontinue telegram services from mid July given that it is a white elephant. However, the news of the scheduled demise of telegram will not be received with a lump in throat by many. That many telegraph offices are not receiving a single customer throughout the year and that many offices have been converted into customer care centres is proof that this mode of communication has for long been put on life-support. With landline telephones and mobiles phones reaching the deepest of crevices in rural India telegram lost the last of reasons for its use.
The quest to ‘make the world smaller’ led to the invention of quicker means of communication. When the telegram was introduced in India in the 1850s it was a game changer so much so that it holds a prominent role in aiding the British in India to suppress the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny. Even though telephones were introduced a few decades after telegraph was introduced, it was no match to the speed and convenience the latter offered. Until the 90s, which saw the rapid growth in the field of telecommunication, telephones were few and far between. The rapid growth in the sector, however, rendered the telegram obsolete overnight.
Interestingly, cinema has played a vital role in keeping the telegraph alive in popular imagination. Often the message in a telegram is conveyed to the audience by the accompanying background music or the expression on the receivers face. Nostalgia apart, it is a prudent move by the BSNL to shut down telegram services, which are estimated to bleed the company by R300-400 crore annually. Telegram joins the illustrious company of woodblock printing, hourglass, typewriter, pager, VHS, 8-track tape, camera film rolls, etc — things that were once of prime importance and today are of little practical use, but are fondly remembered.