fond memories

A Once-useful Device

‘Kattu, kada, kattu’

you no longer linger

amidst us

bemoan we your absence

you helped send

countless messages

business and personal

for more than a century and a half

thousands waiting patiently

in long queues sent messages

from the three metropolises

and bade you goodbye

for the last time

yester night

14 July 2013

‘Kattu kada kattu’

in your honour

we celebrated

‘a delayed  but

a thank-you ‘bogi’

as the ‘new’—SMS ‘n’ email

had already arrived

your dots and dashes

are now redundant and obsolete

now deemed ‘old’

your value lost, your utility gone

learnt we, yet, a new writing skill

stringing words meaningfully

but without grammar

interestingly enough

this your language

survives in SMS though

‘Kattu kada kattu’

you no longer throb

reach no more messages

touch no more

nooks and corners

your continued presence 

no longer viable

to your parent

‘Kattu kada kattu’

your voice now mute

at sending and receiving ends

no more  knock

noon or midnight

no more witness

to joy or shock

at door step

your name removed

from the office title

‘Kattut kada kattu’

you may be history

alongside of your kith and kin—

the gramophone

‘His Masters Voice’ records

the radio the transistor

the typewriter the roll films

the cassette tapes the VCRs

yet your service

not easily forgotten

yours a memory

not easily erasable

Adieu ‘Kattu Kada Kattu!’

Au revoir Telegraph!

Note:   ‘Bogi’ is a festival celebrated in Thamizh Nadu to thank the ‘old’ things for their services and bid farewell, and welcome the ‘new’ into their midst.

             Had my father been alive, he would’ve been most saddened for as a clerk and postmaster he had sent innumerable messages, and I had sat in his lap several evenings listening to the rhythmic sounds, mesmerising to me, as he clicked the instrument to life transcribing word messages into sounds and converting sounds into messages.

             I admire my father for being an understanding superior, relieving ‘younger’ clerks of their night duty at the telegraphic table and sending them home to be with their families.

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