While I was going on morning walk through the road from Gole Market to Connaught Place,New Delhi, I suddenly noticed the telephone posts, which are standing as monuments on the side of the path-way. There are about 5 of them at certain distances. I thought why I had not noticed them earlier. Only the posts were there – no bracket, insulators or spikes.
My mind ran back to the earlier days. Some ten-twenty years back you could have seen such telephone posts standing majestically on the sides of almost all roads, whether in the towns or in the country side. The telephone lines were connected on these posts and will be going on endlessly. There were trunk lines as well as local lines. These connected the telephone lines through out the country.
These posts were made of metal tubes, called A,B,C,and D according to the circumference, the biggest being the A. All these tubes were about 8 feet length and they were fixed according to the required height. The lowest tube A, then B, then C etc. For fixing it strongly in the earth sole-plate and socket were used. On the posts, brackets will be fixed on which insulators will be put. The telephone lines are rounded on these insulators and extended to the next post. There will be a cap for these insulators. Then a lightning spike will be fixed on the top part of the post for the safety of the posts and line from lightning etc. One or two stay wires will be fixed from the top part of the post to the earth. These posts were a sight to see. Telegraph lines were also there through which the messages were sent by morse code.
These posts were being manufactured from the Telecom Factories Kolkata, Jabalpur etc. They were made in such a way to last for decades. At that time nobody thought that these posts will disappear and give way for the cables. Many of these posts after their use are piled up in the telephone excahnge compounds or telecom stores as orphans. And they were sold as scraps.
After the cables have been laid on a large scale, most of these posts have disappeared. How I was glad to see these posts still standing on the path-side, probably thinking about their glorious past. They will be nostalgically thinking about the linemen and mazdoors who used to climb by embracing them. Those times have gone never to return.
I do not know how many more years these posts will be there. In my opinion these should be kept as historical monuments of the growth of telecom services in the country.