Posted on 07/12/2013 2:05:49 AM PDT by Olog-hai
For 163 years, lives across the vast Indian nation have been upended by the knock of the khaki-clad postal worker armed with a telegram.
Families used them to announce births and deaths; the government used them to post job openings; young lovers sent them to tell their folks that they had eloped.
No longer.
On Monday, the state-run telecommunications company will send its final telegram, closing down a service that fast became a relic in an age of email, reliable landlines and ubiquitous cellphones.
The fact that the telegram survived this long is a testament to how deeply woven it is into the fabric of Indian society. In much of the rest of the world, telegrams long ago were relegated to novelty services used by people who wanted to indulge in a bit of nostalgia.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
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Would that be SOS or SWS or SMS?
SMS are very much alive, you know. Cash cow for the carriers.
When I hit post it was SOS. don’t know why the dashes hosed up. Let’s try again . . . - - - . . .
How's Doc going to get a message to Marty in the future without Western Union?!
By sending a text?
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Tradition has it that the first telegram from Washington DC to Baltimore read “What hath God wrought?”
What would be the perfect text for this final telegram message almost 270 years later and halfway around the world?
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