The crowded CTO, the country's second after Kolkata, suddenly witnessed pin-drop silence at the stroke of 10.13 pm. The moment was emotional for over 30 employees and over 50 citizens, who had gathered to be the last to send a telegram. CTO engineer and public relations officer Vaishali Kardhekar broke down with an announcement: "With this telegram (of Nitin Rastogi), we announce the closure of our 163 years of service. Thanks for your support."
The buzz among employees, who were working till that very moment, and the sound of teleprinters stopped at once, after the machine sent its day's last 3085th telegram in the city on Sunday.
Rastogi, working with a leading insurance company, was the last to shoot off a telegram to his agent Ajay Kakad. "This is the last of our telegrams. Thanks for being a client and a part of this history," Nitin wrote.
Brungesh Gandhi and Milan Sanghvi, both with the diamond market, wished the best in life to their friends in Nalasopara, saying that they wanted to be part of history by sending the wish through one of the last five telegrams from Mumbai.
Anand Siawani wrote to his kin "Vande Mataram", while Ramesh Parab wrote to his beloved, "May this last telegram find you all in happiness. Wishing you good luck".
"Telegraph 'TAAR' is coming to a full stop. Treasure this piece of history," said a telegram by Balmohan Vidyamandir, sent to its over 1,000 students on Sunday.
A leading insurance company used the moment to advertise itself by sending 4,000 telegrams in the market, saying, "An era has come to an end with this telegram. So think and go for better care with our policies."
Eight telegraph offices in the city sent 3,085 telegrams, including 511 phonograms, besides 6,000 mass telegrams by corporates and financial institutions on Sunday. "While 3085 telegrams were actually sent through the machines, the remaining 6,000 will be processed over a few days ahead," a senior CTO official said.
On Saturday, 2,859 telegrams were sent by citizens, whereas Friday saw 2,358 telegrams, with 247 among them as phonograms. Crowds were seen at CTO branches at Andheri, Santa Cruz, Borivli, Byculla, Deonar (Chembur), Dadar and Vashi over the last three days.
While displaying the Morse machine, used for sending messages through coded language at CTO, senior telegraph master C N Deshmukh said after the introduction of electric teleprinters 25-30 years ago, it was peak time when they used to send a minimum 5,000 telegrams per day. "Since the last few years, we have been sending around 100 telegrams per day," said Gaurishankar Gaur, CTO's sub divisional engineer.
Deshmukh said that many major corporates and banking institutions in SoBo had requested the central authorities not to shut down the service as around 30,000 telegrams per month were being sent by them even these days through CTO.
Nishaat Mukadam (23) and Pranav Shukla (20) wrote to their parents, relatives and friends that they were sending telegrams in memory of the service that served humanity for over 150 years. "We wanted our telegram to be a surprise for all our well-wishers," they added.
SoBo residents Aditi Jain and Viashakha Chokhani, both 19, sent their first and last telegram to their relatives back home. "We wanted to know how the system worked... Goodbye telegram," they wrote in their messages.
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