Dear Telephone Diary

Dear Telephone Diary

“It’s like meeting, father,” he would put the phone to his parents with tears in his eyes.

I was studying in school. Probably in six or seven classes. One day while the class was being conducted, a teacher called from outside, ‘Satisfaction, satisfaction! The phone has come. ‘

Phone! I was shocked.

I had never received such a phone call at school before. Before that, it seems that he has reached the district headquarters Sandhikharka once or twice and called. There was more correspondence than phone.

For the first time in my life, I received a phone call in my own name. I left the classroom with fear and happiness.

There were some teachers inside the school office. Someone was checking the copy. I looked at the table in the headmaster’s chair. The receiver of the phone set was waiting for me.

“Hello,” I said picking up the phone.

“Hello, I spoke to you, don’t you know?” Came a voice from Uta.

I recognized the voice. My brother had called from Nagaland, India. I don’t remember exactly what I said. I was talking on the phone for the first time. That too in front of the teacher. I was scared, maybe. Similarly, when he saw a teacher on the road, he used to hide.

Interestingly, I had made a telephone diary without talking on the phone. It contained my brother’s number, the numbers of some other neighbors who had gone to Kathmandu.

Our school Kamala Secondary School, Arghakhanchi, Pali did not have much connected phone line. The phone line also reached our school while connecting the landline in the village. The wire was pulled by burying a bamboo pole. The problem of phone breakdown kept coming from time to time.

I must be studying in class six-seven. Until then, the village did not have telephone access. There was an SDT service in Vallo and Pallo villages. You had to walk an hour or two to reach the telephone booth.

The situation in my village was similar. There was a telephone booth about an hour and a half’s walk from our house. The road we used to go to school. The telephone booth was crowded since morning.

Some of them waited for an hour and a half for their relatives to call. Some of them used to call their relatives in the country and abroad by looking at the numbers in the diary. Parents would cry on the phone when they heard a voice in their own ears with their children living abroad for years.

“It was like meeting, father,” he would put down the phone.

Parents would cry on the phone when they heard a voice in their own ears with their children living abroad for years.

“It was like meeting, father,” he would put down the phone.

We school students were like a ‘postman’ delivering a phone message. Since we used to take the same route every day, we used to take the message of the telephone booth to the village and the news of the village to the booth.

Whose phone, when, what time is it coming or who is the message to call? We used to take all this information. Carrying all the messages, we would reach our respective villages.
The telephone booth was crowded from morning till evening.

Everyone had a telephone diary. The main reason for the large crowd was not getting the phone on time. When the phone was busy, it was called ‘Dial Tune’. Sometimes it took a long time to get a phone line.

As soon as ‘Dial Tune’ came, we had to call immediately. Again, it didn’t matter when the next ‘dial tune’ would come. Sometimes there are cases where you have to return without dialing.

The same ‘dial tune’ is waiting to go to the capital Kathmandu. In 2058, while finishing SLC and going up to Thankot, there were advertisements of the college on the big board, including phone numbers. I was thrilled to see these hoarding boards. I wanted to go to college. It was not decided what to do in Kathmandu until the result of the SLC was announced.

There were lots of cars, lots of houses and lots of people in Kathmandu. Phone sets were also plentiful. Landlai had phone facility in the shop opposite to the village. It was a business. Many shops also did landline phone call business.

At that time, there were many cyber or communication centers in Kathmandu. The doors of these cyber centers were marked ‘Local, STD, ISTD and Internet’. Such places were very crowded. Seeing that reminded me of the village telephone booth.

When I came to Kathmandu, Ghattekula used to shop. The shop also had the facility of local phone, including color ID. The telephone set was very organized. The speed of those who come and go by phone was good. Guffins also came with ‘Boy Friend, Girl Friend’. Things were sweet.

Kathmandu was full of students like me who came to study from the village. That process is still going on. At that time, even though mobile phones were started, only a few people had them. Most of the students and job seekers from the village had to rely on the housewife’s phone at a nearby shop. Many people used to write these numbers in the village as their number.

There were a lot of phone calls from homeowners like us. Sometimes I had to shout and sometimes I had to run to the room. When should I say ‘do it after some time’? Such calls used to come a lot on Saturdays. Sometimes the students would move away, but the phone kept ringing.

Many people used a diary to pick up telephone numbers. I used to do the same. Little Chitikka had a telephone diary. Which contained the numbers of many. I often carried it in my pocket. I kept it until later. I don’t remember where it happened later.

My father still uses the same diary. Not because he doesn’t have a mobile, for convenience. Some numbers are on mobile. Many have diaries. You dial the number on your mobile by looking at the same diary.

As he gets older, new technologies are being added. You may not have heard the telephone name in grandfather’s time. Well, why not use it because you live in the state.
The telephone diary I used until now is about to disappear. In its place, mobile and various apps in it have taken place.

So I got to use the mobile service before my father. Or, we fathers and sons got this facility at the same time. It is not that this facility did not come to Nepal when my father was young, but the state did not want to provide this facility. Amanepali had to wait a long time to get such a facility.

The Rana regime brought telephone service to Nepal for its own use until 1973. The public was not allowed to use the telephone service. Only later found.

Some people from Ekta Kathmandu started walking with a small object tied around their waist or with a belt. This item was very popular with busy people. The object survived the tweet from time to time, I didn’t know much about it.

One day a relative came to our house carrying the same thing. I became clear about it from him. That is a communication technology called pager. After dialing the pager number from the other side, the phone number appears on the screen.

The pager carrier has to call back by looking at the same number. It can be understood as a miss call given from a mobile phone now. This technology did not last long.

Gradually, people began to appear in Kathmandu carrying mobile phones. Although the business community carried a lot of mobile phones, the general public did not. A limited number of people started carrying mobile phones. It was difficult to get a SIM card. I still remember getting a SIM card after waiting in line at Telecom’s Bhadrakali.

When I was living in Ghattekula, a friend from Jhapa, Suman Dhakal, who lives in the same house, brought a mobile phone. Nokia had a small set. The mobile set was sent to him by his nephew from the UK. He put the SIM card in that set. The bell started ringing on the mobile set from time to time. Suman’s mobile phone rang only once or twice a day. He was either called by his nephew from the UK or the house was coming from Jhapa.

We used to listen to our mobile phone ringing several times a day. It was fun. There was a charge for picking up the phone at that time. He said that it costs two or three rupees to pick up a phone call.

Mobile phones have been available in Nepal for almost two decades. Following the increasing use of mobile phones in the world, Nepal Telecom had launched mobile phone service for the first time in 2056 BS.

Not carrying a mobile phone is not only an obstacle to work, it has become impassable. I used to be surprised to see people carrying mobile phones then, but now I am surprised to see people not carrying mobile phones.

Mobile handsets have also started to be imported to Nepal from 2053 BS. At the same time, mobile sets were made public for the first time in neighboring India. Along with India, brands like Ericsson, Panasonic, Nokia and Motorola started coming to Nepal.

As soon as the mobile phone service was launched, the telco announced the distribution of 10,000 mobile SIMs. It took almost 2 years to complete 10,000 SIMs. Carrying a mobile phone to the consumer was like a means of luxury. When Samsung Mobile was first introduced in 2058 BS, even 4-5 thousand sets were not sold in a year. Millions of mobile phones are sold every month.

The development of telecommunication has been at a high pace in the span of ten to fifteen years. Not carrying a mobile phone is not only an obstacle to work, it has become impassable. I used to be surprised to see people carrying mobile phones then, but now I am surprised to see people not carrying mobile phones.

Telecommunication technology has changed the lifestyle of Nepalis. Mobile technology was expensive then. No one dared to buy a mobile phone in a hurry. It was time to charge the phone. There was no ease in technology including SIM card.

Significant progress has been made in the field of communication in the country during the last ten years.

While playing with my daughter, I sometimes remember my own childhood. What a difference between father and daughter in childhood! I walked for an hour and a half and waited for the ‘dial tune’ of the telephone. The four-year-old daughter does not eat rice without YouTube.

He also pays attention to tabs, not mobiles. She listens to the song by opening YouTube from various apps inside. Mobile, internet has become a normal thing for him. Before he was born, the fourth generation of mobile network (Forge) came. Now it is difficult to predict where the technology will reach with FiveG, SixG, Seven.

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Rabins Sharma Lamichhane

Rabins Sharma Lamichhane is senior ICT professional who talks about #it, #cloud, #servers, #software, and #innovation. Rabins is also the first initiator of Digital Nepal. Facebook: rabinsxp Instagram: rabinsxp

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