When patience was a virtue

How easily do children and adults of today’s Digital Age lose patience if the internet is down or 4G/Wi-Fi or WhatsApp stops working even for a few minutes? If hours, those around have to listen to curses and worse. They ask you wondering: “how did you guys exist without a TV, micro, mixie, cell-phone, multiplexes, malls etc.”

All this makes me look back over the years. Take just the case of a telephone. Most didn’t have a connection. In a mile-long street, maybe just 2 or 3, unless some shops with phones were interspersed. To get a connection, you had to wait for eternity beside, greasing the palms; begging and scraping before P&T staff. To make a call, you lifted the handset and the operator in a 200-500 line exchange would respond by asking “number please, sir”. He will ring the other party and plug both of you in. He wouldn’t wait to check if the other party has attended. If it rang, his duty was done. To book a trunk call, you stood in a queue at a Post Office, paid in advance for three minutes. And then wait, once again eternally. If you needed to speak to a particular person, it was a PP Call and charges were double.

To test physical fitness, there were no chairs/benches. Once inside the glass booth, after shouting hello a few times, you started your conversation; two minutes would pass and the counter clerk would tap on the glass and remind you to extend but only a maximum of three more minutes. If the line dropped, an altercation would ensue and the others in the queue would be annoyed with you, rather than the clerk or telephone department.

In the army of the Sixties, we had Field Telephones called J&L. They had a small handle and to make a call, you moved it a little. A tiny shutter would fall in the Switch Board Magneto 10 Line Exchange, sounding a warning to the operator, who would plug the cord in and say “Number please, sir”, though there were no numbers but only appointment designations. He would connect the other party first and then call you. Procedure demanded that called party comes on the line first, but if he happened to be a few ranks above you, he would insist you come on the line first. The operator would be stuck between two egos. If a very senior commander wished to call, the Signal Officer would check repeatedly if his voice was audible and intelligible. Woe betide if the senior officer was unable to hear.

My experience of just one army trunk call in early 1963 would interest you.

As adjutant in Charduar (Assam), I was directed by my CO to convey an emergent operational message to our Observation Officer near Bomdila (130 km away). I had to go through five exchanges: Regt, Station Exchange, Tezpur exchange, then the Divisional and Brigade exchanges in that area and finally our officer. I was a 2 Lt; so you can well imagine the time taken and the quality of our conversation. Imagine the scene today.