Curtains down for BSNL's 160-year old telegram service

[kunjuppu]

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Dear Kunjuppu Sir,

It was NOT a dowry item to son in law!

He himself bought the car and sent this telegram for fun!!

your dad was lucky. manymany sils demand (& get) cars..they dont call it dowry anymore though.

 

[Raji Ram]

Dowry and bribe have a new name - 'anbaLippu'!! opcorn:

 

[sadasivam.sridharan]

The crude way of calling both dowry and bribe is PICCHAI.(Beggary)

 

[kunjuppu]

The crude way of calling both dowry and bribe is PICCHAI.(Beggary)

blackmail is more like it.

they do it at the critical time .. like just before thali kattal and such.

 

[sadasivam.sridharan]

blackmail is more like it.

they do it at the critical time .. like just before thali kattal and such.

If my observation is correct,the dowry evil is dying with the advent of girls becoming more independent financially.

 

[kunjuppu]

If my observation is correct,the dowry evil is dying with the advent of girls becoming more independent financially.

from what i hear of our community, and from posts in this forum, tambrams are in the opposite mode. the guys are finding it dfficult to find wives.

many reasons i guess

- inverse male female ratios (possible but not sure)

- high average earning power of the girls making them more independent, their parents dependent on the girls' income - both delaying 'get ready to marriage' pressures

- no more social stigma like previous years to have an unmarried girl at home (break up of social cohesion)

- girls marrying out of caste and some cases, out of religion

- more love marriages within the community, which takes away any bargaining power of the boys (i have seen boys' mothers beg for particular girls)

- girls unwilling to give up their jobs in chennai bangalore hyderabad. so tough luck for those living in small cities or north india, particularly small north indian cities like patna ahmedabad bhopal surat or jaipur..and such places

- girls studying abroad on their own.

but it appears that other castes have learned their lessons well from erstwhile brahmins re the bad habit of dowry. many castes did not have the practice, but with the education of boys, and high fees for the colleges, dowry runs into lakhs if not crores for folks like nadars gounders and such. this i saw in a neeya naana shows, where one nadar guy said that 80 sovereigns was minium dowry plus swiss watch, camera, two wheeler..and this inspite of an educated girl. they will change too, maynot be tomorrow, but in a few years.

 

[prasad1]

Mr. K,
Obviously people did not get the memo.
http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/chit-chat/12411-re-horoscope-matching-9.html#post193212

 

[Iyyarooraan]

Obituary to Indian Telegraphic Service: An Agra trader wanted to visit Delhi for collection, but the trader's office sent him a telegram saying, "SETH AJMER GAYA meaning to say do not come. But the Agra trader did come, because he received telegram saying "SETH AAJ MUR GAYA". But the services did help in those days in their own style.

 

[P.J.]

On July 14, someone somewhere in India will tap out what is being called the world’s last telegram.

India is the last country with regular telegraph service. And the final message will be sent next month.

An Indian staff member dispatches telegrams in Mumbai, India, on June 14.

On July 14, someone somewhere in India will tap out what is being called the world's last telegram. India's state-owned telecom company, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, has been holding out as other countries around the world retire their antiquated telegraph services. Now, after delaying the move for two years, the business operating what is considered to be the world's last telegraph service is finally ready to pull the plug, saying telegrams are no longer commercially viable in the age of digital communications.

The last telegram ever is about to be sent - The Week

 

[P.J.]

Curtains came down on Sunday on the 163-year-old telegram service in the country — the harbinger of good and bad news for generations of Indians — amid a last minute rush of people thronging telegraph offices to send souvenir messages to family and friends.

A large people, many of them youngsters and first-timers, turned up at four telegraph centres in Delhi and other cities, which have almost been forgotten in recent years to send a message to their loved ones on the last day of the service.

Among them were housewifes, college students, morning joggers in track suits, old timers and office goers lining up, taking time off on a holiday. Some children, accompanied by parents, also sent their life's first and last telegram.

"This is the first time I am sending a telegram. It is for my 96-year-old grandfather who lives in a village near Trichy," Anand Sathiyaseelan, a lawyer by profession, said.

A manager in a real estate firm Vikas Arvind said he was sending greetings to his parents in Bareilly.

"This I hope they will keep it as a memorabilia," Arvind said.

"Hope all is well" and "An iconic service comes to an end" were among the messages sent on Sunday.

Once the fastest means of communication for millions of people, the end of the humble telegram service left behind a string of happy and bitter memories for people across the country.

People throng telegraph offices across country to bid farewell to telegram service - The Times of India

 

[vgane]

Authors Charles F. Briggs and Augustus Maverick wrote in their 1858 book "The Story of the Telegraph":
"Of all the marvelous achievements of modern science the electric telegraph is transcendentally the greatest and most serviceable to mankind … The whole earth will be belted with the electric current, palpitating with human thoughts and emotions … How potent a power, then, is the telegraphic destined to become in the civilization of the world! This binds together by a vital cord all the nations of the earth. It is impossible that old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist, while such an instrument has been created for an exchange of thought between all the nations of the earth."

Alas, the writers did not imagine that Technology will change so rapidly...Do any of us use the Remington mechanical typewriter anymore...Same is the fate of the IBM Electric type writer

15 years back Pagers for sending Text and Voice messages were the status symbol of the youth in India...Now it has been almost consigned to the flames & has very restricted use where mobile phones cannot reach

We did not write a lengthy epitaph for the silent movie era or the gramophone or the black & white TV or the rotary dial phone

We are discarding the heavier mobile phones every 2-3 years for sleeker phones with rapid processors, high resolution cameras and longer battery life

Let us discard old technologies for better ones that makes our lives simpler, faster and cheaper

​

 

[sadasivam.sridharan]

How about the phonogram service which we use to send greetings for weddings and other occasions? Are they too dead and gone?

 

[Brahmanyan]

Telegrams had its day for 160 years and now silenced by advancement of Telecommunication techniques. Having been associated with Newspaper industries during the best year of my professional life, I know the value of the " dots and dashes" of Telegraphic lines in collecting news in those days. Later mechanisation of this by Creed Telegraphic system invented by Canadian, Fredierick Creed in 1900 converted the original Morse telegraph printed code on tape to running messages. This system revolutionise the Newspaper industries till the teleprinters replaced it.

Now that the Information Technology is advancing in fast leaps, we can only lament for the good old Telegraph system which is buried in the foundation of communication industry.

Brahmanyan,
Bangalore.

Here is an obituary:
Just 15 minutes to midnight the iconic Telegram breathed its last in the Capital with the message sent to Rahul Gandhi.
The last Telegram was booked at the counter of Central Telegraph Office (CTO) Janpath by one Ashwani Mishra,
who sent messages to Gandhi and Director General of DD news SM Khan.

 

[vgane]

How about the phonogram service which we use to send greetings for weddings and other occasions? Are they too dead and gone?

Phonogram is still being offered as a service by BSNL..You can dial 1585 for this