ADIEU, GREAT OLD TELEGRAM !
Kolkata, 15 July 2013
Dear Grandpa Wire,
It's a sad day for me, because you left us for good and I'll have no opportunity to interact with you in the coming days. Though I haven't seen you taking birth in India in the year 1850 and you are 163 today, but I was frequently in touch with you over these years of my life. As a child, I was curious to know why people used to affectionately call your voice - "Torre-tocca" and I got my answer when I was 12. Grandpa, how did you enjoy your first run between Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Diamond Harbour in 1850? You must have enjoyed it immensely, I believe.
You loved to travel at will, dear grandpa Wire (alias Telegram) and you were always in a hurry - to deliver whatever you were asked to and you always gave importance to whatever we had said. We are grateful to your father, Sir Samuel Morse, who foresaw your immense capability to work in the service of mankind and indeed he was right. Even Lord Dalhousie praised your loyalty and acknowledged your help which he took from you while suppressing the insurgency during the Sepoy Mutiny in India in 1857 !
I embraced you by way of a telegram while receiving my 1st interview call in 1973 from my would be employers, Glaxo and I wired my arrival to the great city of Bombay (now Mumbai) to my newly wedded wife way back in the 70's. I have always received you with a warm hug, whenever you came to deliver any news to me - good, bad or ugly !
Now that you will be no more in India from today on, only to be displaced and discarded by the younger technologies like e-mail, cell phone, sms and internet, the Nightingales and Bulbuls will sit atop the telegraph wires by the railway lines and across the paddy fields and mourn about your sad demise. And silently, I'll join them in their prayers by singing a ballad in praise of you. Adieu, grandpa Wire. Keep well wherever you will be.
Yours
Robin.
P.S. : The poem below and the picture (the lines of which are drawn with the computer mouse) are my final tributes to you and your services in India.
Robin.
Kolkata, 15 July 2013
Dear Grandpa Wire,
It's a sad day for me, because you left us for good and I'll have no opportunity to interact with you in the coming days. Though I haven't seen you taking birth in India in the year 1850 and you are 163 today, but I was frequently in touch with you over these years of my life. As a child, I was curious to know why people used to affectionately call your voice - "Torre-tocca" and I got my answer when I was 12. Grandpa, how did you enjoy your first run between Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Diamond Harbour in 1850? You must have enjoyed it immensely, I believe.
You loved to travel at will, dear grandpa Wire (alias Telegram) and you were always in a hurry - to deliver whatever you were asked to and you always gave importance to whatever we had said. We are grateful to your father, Sir Samuel Morse, who foresaw your immense capability to work in the service of mankind and indeed he was right. Even Lord Dalhousie praised your loyalty and acknowledged your help which he took from you while suppressing the insurgency during the Sepoy Mutiny in India in 1857 !
I embraced you by way of a telegram while receiving my 1st interview call in 1973 from my would be employers, Glaxo and I wired my arrival to the great city of Bombay (now Mumbai) to my newly wedded wife way back in the 70's. I have always received you with a warm hug, whenever you came to deliver any news to me - good, bad or ugly !
Now that you will be no more in India from today on, only to be displaced and discarded by the younger technologies like e-mail, cell phone, sms and internet, the Nightingales and Bulbuls will sit atop the telegraph wires by the railway lines and across the paddy fields and mourn about your sad demise. And silently, I'll join them in their prayers by singing a ballad in praise of you. Adieu, grandpa Wire. Keep well wherever you will be.
Yours
Robin.
P.S. : The poem below and the picture (the lines of which are drawn with the computer mouse) are my final tributes to you and your services in India.
Robin.
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