Mother Serious Start Immediately.” A very popular phrase, and typical of the brevity in language used in telegrams. Men like N Annadurai have delivered thousands of such telegrams in their career with the postal department.
“Double X telegrams (announcing death) are always a priority although it is saddening. It is a delicate task to tell people that someone they love is no more. Still, it is our solemn duty,” says Annadurai reclining in his chair at his office on Second Line Beach.
Cycling 15 kilometres everyday and delivering around 100 telegrams on an average in Chennai was a task that he did ceaselessly for 27 full years.
When the ICF Telegraph Office was shut in 2010, he was shifted to the BSNL’s Customer Service operations like many others.
In all these years, Annadurai has delivered telegrams braving flood, rains and the blazing sun.
More importantly, he and his ilk have ‘fought’ untethered dogs furiously guarding their masters’ homes in the dead of night.
“Dogs chasing us is something most delivery men will remember,” says Annadurai.
Emergency telegrams (‘most immediate’ in telegraph workers’ parlance) must be delivered, be it day or night.
“I must wake up the recipient, dogs or no dogs. You can understand the gravity of the dog menace if we had a separate category called Special Disability Leave to avail leave for dog bites.”
One afternoon, when he delivered a telegram that announced a sudden death, he saw the addressee actually fainting.
Telegrams announcing births, interviews and jobs are occasions when people happily invite the delivery man for a cup of coffee or tea and offer ‘tips’. But the emergency communication has mostly been used to announce sudden deaths so much so that a telegram was almost dreaded.
But what used to be a utility for urgent communication even till the 1990s could survive later on only as a communication for legal purposes.
“By mid-2000s, telegrams were mostly from banks and lawyers on things like payment defaults or initiation of legal proceedings.” From at least 100 telegrams a day, on the day he called it quits in 2010, Annadurai was delivering only 10-15 telegrams a day.
“Though it was a painstaking job, I had a tremendous job satisfaction.”