KOCHI: On this day, twenty-seven years ago, i.e. September 17, 1996, the then Flag Officer Commander-In-Chief (CNC) of the Southern Naval Command, Vice Admiral A R Tandon, received a call at his office in Naval Base, Kochi. Nothing unusual, save for the fact that this was the first mobile phone call made in Kerala.
To mark the occasion, Escotel Mobile, the service provider, had roped in noted writer and Jnanpith award winner Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai to make the call at a ceremony held at Avenue Regent Hotel on MG Road. A clutch of social luminaries were also invited to witness the event, including Kamala Surayya, who inaugurated the function. While the details of the call are now lost on VAdm Tandon (retd), who is now 83, he remembers the event quite vividly.
“When I took charge as the CNC in April 1996, I had called on E K Nayanar, the then chief minister of Kerala, and he had mentioned that there’s this thing that was going to happen in a few months — the launch of a mobile service. We knew it was important. Of course, none of them could have envisioned just how big mobile phone service was going to get,” VAdm Tandon told TNIE on a mobile call from his hilly hometown in Uttarakhand.
Indeed, unbeknownst to them, the September 17 call was a watershed moment in the world of telecommunications. The next few years saw Escotel Mobile Communications Ltd pour over crores to bolster cellular telephone services in the country, especially in southern Indian cities. This penetration to the south, which came just under a year after the first service was launched in India, assumes greater significance given the rarity of such preferences today.
For the staff of Avenue Regent, the ceremony was nothing short of a miracle. Chef Joshua E V, who’s been with the hotel for nearly three decades, has seen many events during this time, but unlike the others, the September 17 call remains a very memorable one. “We couldn’t believe what was transpiring. Thakazhi Sivasankara sir was talking, and we heard a hello from the other side. I remember all the staff here staring in complete disbelief,” Joshua told TNIE.
The 52-year-old has since owned several mobile phones. “I remember the first one. It came with a long knob at the top. Now, everyone’s got a mobile phone tucked away in their pockets,” he added. VAdm Tandon got his first mobile phone shortly after his retirement in March 1998. “It came with an Airtel SIM. Back then, it served little purpose. Now, it has become an integral part of our everyday lives. Especially here, in Nainital, where landline connections are hard to come by,” the officer said. On the day TNIE got in touch with him, VAdm Tandon had just finished talking to a few friends in the Navy from different corners of the country, all on his mobile phone. “It is this device that has made these connections possible,” he added.
The past twenty-seven years have seen a sea change in the telecommunications sector. Earlier, if it cost Rs 40,000 for mobile phones that do the most basic of functions - i.e. making a call, today’s devices, which start from Rs 5,000, offer this and many more features. The number of mobile service users, too, has skyrocketed. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Kerala now boasts over 4.2 crore mobile service subscribers, and there’s likely no slowing down now.
Anecdote
The first mobile call in India was made by the then West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu in August 1995 from the Writers’ Building in Kolkata. The recipient of that call was Union Communications Minister Sukh Ram, who attended it from the Sanchar Bhavan office in New Delhi.