The Ticker @ Teleprinter

S Balakrishnan *

With the advent of internet and mobile phone, many communication modes have faded away from the fast changing scenario. Teleprinter is one among them along the written letter and telegram. RIP! Stylishly called Ticker, teleprinter (TP for short) is fighting to survive in this modern world.

TP was/is an integral part of news agencies like PTI, UNI, etc. As the machine kept on ticking as it printed news 24x7, it was called ticker. As my office is the news agency of the Central Government, TP played a vital role. TP was part of my office life for around 20 years until the new millennia when computers started threatening them. In fact, it was the lifeline of our office, so to say, the very heartbeat.

We even had specially created post called Teleprinter Operator, equivalent to entry level Clerk Grade II. The TP Operators (TPOs) lived in their own secret kingdom, the TP Room that was shielded with glass to prevent the continuous irritating ticking noise from spreading all around. Our TP network spread its tentacles from our headquarters in New Delhi to the eight regional offices and from there to the branch offices throughout India.

It was in our Port Blair office, my first place of posting, where I saw with awe the TP. But in that far off Island in 1978, TP was dead for most of the time. Very rarely it would come alive and die that very soon itself. So it was just a showpiece. Only during the visit of the then Prime Minister, Shri Morarji Desai, to declare Cellular Jail as National Memorial (Feb. 1979), did it work smoothly for a day or two.

Then again it went back to coma stage. In Cuttack, my second place of posting, the TP Operator was Subash Chandra Bose, Netaji’s name sake, but not as dedicated as Netaji. An elderly man, he was sulking and highly irritable. With our Regional Office in Calcutta functioning very lethargically, we used to beg Bose to send unofficial messages to find out about DA arrears, bonus payment, leave/loan/advances/GPF sanction, etc.

It was with much fuss that he would oblige us. In Gangtok, Sikkim, my third station (1983-88), the scene was similar to Port Blair - TP worked rarely. Either it was power cut or telecommunication disruption. Tapan Kumar Pal, the TP Operator, would cozily doze off on the TP itself with an electric room heater placed nearby.

In our Calcutta Regional Office, one Ms. Nilima was in the TP Section. She was a kind soul who would oblige our requests and get back with information from the Admn. Section there. Once when I visited the Calcutta RO, I was rather shocked to find a very diminutive Nilima.

I had imagined her to be a strong person with a bold voice but she was so lean and short with a squeaky voice that my imaginative Nilima got shattered to pieces. She was so small that she had to climb with difficulty on the raised TP chair, specially made for TPOs.

Only when I joined in Madras (Chennai) Regional Office did I realize the important role of TP in our office. The prime duty in the morning was to send a digest of news collated from newspapers to our Headquarters (HQ) in New Delhi. Such a National digest combined from all the regional offices and New Delhi was got readied and circulated every day to the PM, Union Ministers/Secretaries, etc.

This over, it was flow of news items/features from HQ; the TP lines went hectic during Union Budget, Railway Budget and Parliament sessions. Administrative messages also flew back & forth. Naturally, therefore, the TP Operators gained self-importance, though anyone who knew typewriting could easily operate TP after picking up the nuances. I found the TPOs to be generally irritable & quirky.

Well, you can’t blame them; the continuous ticking could be the cause. Under the Madras Regional Office, there were once about nine offices to be communicated with! The branch offices had just one machine. As computers slowly trooped in, the TPOs lost their kingdom. Earlier to computer, the arrival of fax machine foretold the end of teleprinter.

The advantage of fax was that signed letters could be sent and received. Some models could also be used to create punched tape for data storage (both from typed input and from data received from a remote source) and to read back such tape for local printing or transmission. I used to take home the punched out dots for my kids to play.

Hindustan Teleprinters Limited (HTL) was the sole supplier of TP machines initially. It was incorporated in Madras in 1960 as a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of Communications to manufacture teleprinters for the National telecom network.

A pioneer in the field, the company produced and supplied 1.25 lac electro mechanical teleprinters of Olivetti technology till 1987 and, thereafter, 60,000 electronic teleprinters based on Sagem’s know-how up to 1994. With sea change in technology, market and customer preferences, the company had to diversify; it became a multi-product company.

HTL is now a subsidiary of HFCL, one of the largest private sector companies, providing integrated Telecom product & solution in Indian as well as Global markets. HFCL acquired 74% equity stake in HTL under Govt of India’s divestment policy in 2000, with 26% share still retained by the Union Government.

The TPOs had developed their own abbreviations as pioneers of text-speak abbreviations that we now use in social media. Some of the abbreviations were – r u Gtg (are u getting), AB (answer back), ur (your), u (you), IC (I see), DR (dear), GM/GN (good morning/good night), pl (please), EOM (end of message) and the like. The most anxiously awaited text was GN (Good Night) in the evening.

Only when the HQ conveyed GN to RO, the RO would relay it to the Branches, and only then it was time for pack up for the day. So the BOs would be begging the ROs for GN. If you don’t keep the TPO in good mood, they could play truant and spoil your day, beware !

The TPOs had the privilege of adding their initial at the end of message along with the time; this gave them power as well as responsibility. Whenever the other side did not get the message clearly, the sender would be asked to send test messages like the English pangrams “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” or “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the nation”.

At times, to avoid work, one could pretend not getting the other side, thus making them go mad. The resort was a complaint to VFT Tower of Telecom Dept. I accidentally found some TP sheets of 40 years back. Indeed, they are now part of my old treasures because the Ticker no more ticks!