A full stop
The “dit dit dit da da da” chatter of the telegraph is not heard any more. Technology’s march made telegraphic transmission of information redundant in most areas, except the truly inaccessible. Now telegrams that used to be transmitted for almost 160 years in India will, like the dodo, be extinct from July 15.
A telegram’s arrival was the cornerstone of many a cinematic moment. In real life too, it used to draw the best of creativity as charges were by the word. Charles Napier is fabled to have sent the world’s most famous cryptic telegram, of just one word: “Peccavi”. Having just overrun Sindh province for the British empire, he is said to have informed London in one Latin word — that meant “I have sinned” — and they got the message.
The telegraph service also used to charge for punctuation marks, making the job of journalists of yore quite cumbersome — Douglas Jardine won the toss comma chose to bat semi-colon saying double quote and so on... Asked by his newspaper to cut out punctuation marks to save on costs of overseas cables out of Australia, a well-known cricket writer shot back to his editor — I will send the punctuation marks comma you put in the text stop.
The extinct service will leave only memories now of a day and age in which the postman cycled in a hurry to convey the good or bad news or, even better, came with a telegraphic money order from a generous relative.
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