In the days of yore, telegrams were delivered by messengers, who were in the permanent cadre , provided with uniforms and bicycles. Even ‘late fee’ telegrams with urgent texts were accepted on payment of an additional fee, to be delivered after office hours. In such instances, the telegraph messenger who takes telegrams for delivery, is paid an extra allowance, for working beyond normal hours.

In the early days, most of the telegrams were written in English. There is lot of excitement when the telegraph messenger arrives and rings the bell. Most of the time, it is bad news, conveying the demise of a relation or a loved one. On receipt of a telegram, an ordinary villager will find himself in a quandary, when it is written in English. Often, the help of the telegraph messenger who brings the telegram, is sought to have the message translated into Sinhala.

It so happened that, in one such instance, a telegram worded: ‘Patient discharged, remove from hospital’ was delivered, and the telegraph messenger requested to explain the message in Sinhala, could not fathom the meaning of the word ‘discharged’. However, he did not want to show the villager that he did not understand English. He could only think of ‘discharge’ in terms of a battery. After reading the message several times, with the little knowledge of the language he had, he told the villager, ‘the patient had died and you are requested to remove (the dead body) from the hospital’.

On hearing this, the women folk in the household started wailing. Neighbours gathered, and started to make funeral arrangements. A vehicle was arranged to take a coffin to the hospital. When they arrived at the hospital, to their greatest amazement and relief, they saw the ‘dead man’ seated on a bench in the hospital, discharged and waiting to go home. It was a delightful surprise, indeed. Later, the villagers gathered at the post office to teach the telegraph messenger a good lesson. The postmaster had to intervene to pacify and disperse the crowd.

On another occasion (not in the same area), a telegram with the message: ‘Wire fifty rupees’, had been explained as, ‘to send wires worth fifty rupees’. The sender of the telegram was a chena cultivator. The recipient surmised that the requirement should be barbed wire, to protect the cultivation. In those good old days, a whole reel of barbed wire could be bought with that amount, which he took to his friend, who was actually awaiting the receipt of the urgently needed money, which he expected by a telegraph money order.

Then, there is the incident that happened at the Gelioya post office, which was then in a low lying area, close to the banks of the Mahaweli. Before putting up the Victoria dam, this area often got flooded during rainy weather. Once, the flood waters came so rapidly and unexpectedly that the postmaster had no time to get out and run for safety. With rushing waters closing upon him, the PM got onto the top of the office safe, which was placed on a higher elevation.

On occasion of unexpected happenings of this nature, he was expected to inform his higher authorities of such incidents, by telegraph. On this occasion, while perched on the top of the safe, he wrote a ‘service telegram’ (used for departmental purposes) in a form taken out of a pad which happened to be on the safe, at that time, to be sent to the head office: ‘Office inundated with floods. Cash safe in the safe, I am safe on the safe’. (Since of late, a new post office has been built in Gelioya, in an elevated position)

These are amusing, but true stories of yesteryear. Today, telegraph service is used mostly by the poor, more efficient and effective modes of communication like fax, SMS, e mail etc. being used by the affluent. Hence, the ‘step motherly’ treatment meted out to this essential service. The Postal Department should not let the telegraph service degenerate into a ‘dying service’, but try to improve it, to fit the modern era.