Two days before India bids adieu to the telegram, 23-year-old Kemps Corner resident Riddhi Shah spent the entire morning at the Central Telegraph Office (CTO) in Fort, sending telegrams to her old school mates and children of family members spread across the country. The cost: R 2,000. The experience according to her: priceless!
Today is the last day to book a telegram after which this communication service would be a part of history. On Friday morning, the staff at the Central Telegraph Office (CTO), Fort, were in for a surprise. While MiD DAY was at the CTO, we came across Kemps Corner resident Riddhi Shah.
Riddhi Shah at the Central Telegraph Office at Fort on Friday. Pic/Sayed Sameer Abedi
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While for most of us it was a regular morning, Shah had decided to spend the morning more interestingly. Taking a cue from the pleasant surprise she received on Thursday, where one of her friends sent her a telegram, 23-year-old Shah sent 47 telegrams to people and children whom she knew. She added that they might have not received a telegram ever in their lives otherwise.
Shah was found sitting on the couch facing the door of the CTO at Fort, 9 am onwards on Friday morning, writing telegrams to teachers and juniors from her school who are now scattered all across the country. She was, however, keenest, on sending telegrams to all the children she knew. "I spent around R 2,000 for sending these 47 telegrams, but the joy of sending them is unparalleled. I wanted to send them to the children in particular, who would have otherwise never have got an opportunity to receive one.”
The message she sent her teachers read, ‘A piece of history for someone creating a living legend’. The telegram she sent out to the children read: ‘To tomorrow’s future, a piece of Indian telecom history’. Even the CTO officials looked amused when the girl kept on asking for more telegram forms. Shah said that when the postman actually came to deliver the telegram at her home, she was taken aback. “I thought that the telegram was some new kind of e-marketing activity, but the delivery person convinced me otherwise. My friend from Pondicherry then called me and told me that she had actually sent a telegram.u00a0
The message on it was really touching. It read, ‘I never sent a telegram. You probably never received one. Glad we can share a piece of history. Be yourself always, that’s an order sent with love.’ I wanted to make other people happy by sending them telegrams as well,” said Shah who also took a picture with the person who came to deliver the telegram to her. “The delivery man was touched. He told me that he has been delivering telegrams for over two decades but was never asked for a photograph,” she signs off.u00a0
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