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A LEAF FROM LIFE
Papa had retired from KDHP CoLtd - it was James Finlay for a while - on 31January1975.
We left Munnar on 30 January 1975.
Papa's retirement had led the family into a turmoil. Unfortunately Mummy had passed away in 1978. As Papa was staying alone in our house at Thalavady, we had applied for a telephone connection at the house for accessing him through phone. Several years went by. The phone connection did not materialise. Exasperated we withdrew the application. It was BSNL or its predecessor.
Years later when Laji with his family was staying with Papa, they felt acutely the necessity of a telephone connection at home. An application for the connection was submitted again. In about two years the phone was allotted and it was installed at our house in no time.
The fun began there.
Those were the days when mobile phone was yet to make its entry in the country. But there was a solace. One could access anyone in the country through the STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialling) facility. It had made communication smooth and fast.
Earlier one had to book a call at the local telephone exchange. You would be placed in the waiting list. They would put your call through when you move up in the queue and reach the number one slot on the waiting list. It was a cumbersome procedure where you might have to wait for pretty long a time.
Naturally, when you make STD calls your telephone bill would leap frog.
The question is, when you obtain a telephone connection after a long wait, what would a sane person do. In the normal run, he would surprise his dear ones and friends with calls from the newly installed phone.
I just wonder, who gave the odd idea to Papa.
He took out several Inland Letter forms and wrote out to everyone - son, daughter, relatives and friends - that he had been allotted a new telephone connection and that the phone had been installed at the house. He inscribed the phone number in the letter. Fortunately there was a letter box in front of our house and it meant he didnot have to walk far to post the Inland Letters.
Then he sat at home.
He was happy, many of the people on receipt of the Inland letters had phoned him up.
At home, in Trivandrum, we had all been busy with our heavy schedules. We expected Papa to ring us up from Thalavady, expressing his happinsee on the obtention of the new telephone connection. Phones at home were a rarity at that time.
After a while, when there had not been any phone call from Papa we surmised he was not going to call us from his new phone.
We called him. He was full of rancour. He said he had advised many people that he had a telephone installed in his house and they were provided the the number. He had a grouse that I was the only person who did not call him at once though I was his son. He was very angry.
I kept quiet. I didn't know what to make of it. As I looked at it, being his son, Papa ought to have called me on the phone the moment it was installed.
Those days telephones were a luxury. People were overjoyed when they were allotted a phone connection.
I told Papa when I met him later, instead of writing a letter inscribing the phone number, how wonderful it would have been if he had surprised me with a call from the new phone.
Well, Papa kept an iconic inscrutable face and the issue ended there.
