About 95 people visited for sending their farewell messages through telegram on Saturday and about 35 people paid tributes to 150 year old technology.
"Celebrating the Farewell of Telegram, Wishing you Happy life Ahead." This farewell message was sent by two brothers Suchit Kumar and Sourav Kumar to their relatives staying far away from them at Ranchi GPO on Sunday.
The brothers, employed as Software Engineers in TCS Company, said that they used to hear from their mother, uncle and other relatives about telegram, that mostly the messages of sorrow and sometimes the message of Joy and Marriage used to come through telegram but they didn't know what it was like actually. But as soon as they heard that telegram is going to be closed from July 14, and being an engineer such an important thing was going out of use, both the brothers rushed for telegram and seemed to be very happy.
According to SP Gupta, an old official working as computer operator and is composing and sending telegrams for last 35 years in the department. Gupta is using computer for sending telegrams for last eight years and before that he used to send telegrams through Electronic TP via SFT (Soft Forwarding Telegraph) and SFMS system.
While sending telegrams he has to be very careful about the messages so that there should be no error because it may mean something else. Gupta said that while sending the messages of sorrow sometimes his eyes shed tears, but it was part of the job.
According to Gupta being 150 year old, actually telegrams reached their peak popularity in the 1920s and 1930s when it was cheaper to send a telegram than to place a long distance telephone call.
People saved money by using the word "stop" instead of periods to end sentences because punctuation was extra while the four character word was free. Telegram is still in use, despite the world has moved so fast, now-days 25 to 30 words costs Rs. 25.
"Dear Devanshi, I reached Ranchi Safe & Sound. With love, You're Father, Jitesh Kumar," was another message from a father to his five year-old daughter who is trying to explain and show what actually Telegram is.
Jitesh, resident of Delhi was very happy after sending telegram to his daughter. "When I came to know that telegram system was going to be closed from July 14 and will be a thing of past, I was very curious to tell my little daughter about the telegram and being so far from my daughter I reached the nearest GPO in Ranchi and finally sent a telegram to Delhi," he said.
According to Bishnu Oroan, an official working as booking clerk for last 30 years in the Telegram department, for more than 150 years, messages of joy, sorrow and success came in signature yellow envelopes hand delivered by courier. Mostly people were dependent on telegram for sending their urgent messages to distant places because there was no other way to communicate so fast. But now telegram is officially going to be a thing of past and so people of Ranchi tried to pay tribute and give farewell to the system.