My first use of Telephone

My first  use  of Telephone

By

P.R.Ramachander

   I am taking you  all nack to about 60 years .Though  I was brought up in a town that  in a business  establishment  ,I had not seen a telephone there .In our village   , none of our houses  had a phone, The only phone that we had access  during that time was in our post office ,If some  wants to call  some other  person, they had to book a trunk call from the post office to the  post office of another village or town where the  person whom we   want to contact lives. To book a trunk call it will take several hours and once  they  are  contacted that post office will send message to the concerned person and just to  talk to him , it will take  about  6-7 hours. According the money value    Trunk call was  also very costly during those times,But if you want to  contact a very rich person or a big company who have a phone, you can book a trunk call to them  from post office. Though I have seen a pphone in post office and in Cinemas I had never touched a phone till  I  reached  20. It was at that time  I travelled to Calcutta  to join Indian Statistical  Institute .It was strange town  with no friends or relatives. After  getting down in Howrah station I took a Rickshaw and asked him to go to a Madrasi Hotel(I knew how to read, write and speak Hindi, He took me to an Andhra hotel called Indira Vilas. After settling down I asked  the hotel manager  about whereabouts of ISI and he told me   that he  does not know and dialled the number  and gave me the phone, I was extremely nervous   and   the  person at the other end spoke  in Bengali  and a few English words in a typical Bengali twang.

       I gathered   that  I have to go Barrackpore  (The ISI was  in Barrackpore  Trunk  Road)  and I took a train from a bear by station called Sealdha and reached Barrackpore, None of them knew  about ISI  but one man  said  I have  to take a Bus to Calcutta   and get down in a stop called Dunlop Bridge. With lots  of difficulty I did reached ISI . Even today  I am not able to forget my first  phone call.