Telegram's unsung heroes recall yesteryear memories

Memories of an era gone by are all that remains for telegraphists, considered the backbone of the historic 163-year-old telegram service, which bids its final adieu.
The state-run telecom firm BSNL has decided to discontinue telegrams following a huge shortfall in revenue.
"Sunday is the last day for telegram services. The service will start at 8 am and close by 9 pm," BSNL CMD R K Upadhyay said.
"The service will not be available from Monday."
Septuagenarian Gulshan Rai Vij, who retired in 1997 as a veteran telegraphist after serving almost four decades in a government job, recalls working in the "golden era of the telegram".

"Telegrams were notorious for bringing bad news, of war casualties and death from accidents. But, now it brings the news of its own demise. We have seen the peak of this service and worked in its golden era. New technology replaces the old, but telegrams gave us our bread and butter and our identity, so, indeed it feels sad to see it depart so unceremoniously," Vij told PTI.

The 75-year-old who joined the service in 1959 says he "maintained his composure" around the India-Pakistan war in 1971 and the turbulent days of the Emergency from 1975-77 as he continued to deliver messages, "not allowing himself to be emotionally involved".

"I was posted in Rohtak then. The 1971 war was when we worked round the clock without concern for food and water. Messages of war casualties would come from the defence headquarters and we would just keep punching away the news as fast as possible.
"As a telegraphist, one could not have gotten emotionally involved with the sad situation because there were thousands of messages to be delivered on time, and we did our job in the best possible capacity. We were all driven by a national spirit and it just powered us to work in such tough and testing times," he said.

For the world outside, a telegram operator's job might be the most mundane but only a telegraphist knows the joys and the challenges of working on the telegraph machine, which saw its avatar change from the early Morse Code era to the teleprinters and the current internet-based service.
"Despite matriculate with first class division being the minimum qualification criterion, only the sharpest minds were hired after a written test and a handwriting test. And, all telegraphists enjoy the sound of the 'dots and dashes' that translates into alphabets. For them, it's more like a symphony. I know it, because I have been a telegraphist myself," Gajendra Negi , a staff at the Central Telegraph Office said.