The last five lucky winners

As the news of the closure of telegram service spread across the State, the telegraph division of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) on Raj Bhavan Road sprang back into action.

The authorities were forced to hold a lottery draw to decide the last five telegraph applicants, whose name, photograph and personal details would be embedded in the national archives.

P Nagaraju, Principal General Manager of BSNL, announced the names of the lucky five: Shivkumar AP, IAF Squadron Leader U K Prabodh Kumar, Leonard Levis, Vyshnavi Kamath and Tapa.

With a record 2,120 telegrams and 130 phonograms booked on the last day of telegraph services at the GPO, senior officials were forced to summon probably one of the last serving batches of telegraphist cadre officials, who were happy to rush back to service.

  However, with no fresh supplies of telegram booking forms, they faced a daunting task of pooling the near worn-out telegram applications from warehouse and other offices. Though most of the tech-savvy applicants reached the office early morning, barely a few had a clue on filing it.  And this was a chance for a few old-timers to tutor them.

“Filing telegram is extremely easy; it is surprising that so many gadget-savvy fingers are unaware of it,” Madhusudhan Kumar, a retired lecturer, said.