The man who came to our house with the black two-piece candlestick telephone (see photo) rang up my father after installing it. Father was in in his office and this guy told him that the phone was now installed.
In those days very few homes in the town had a telephone. This was our first phone.
I had noted that "Sahib salam" were his first words spoken into the circular phone mouthpiece to my father.And then,before disconnecting he said "please talk to your son now" and shoved the candlestick contraption close on my face and the receiver on my ear, asking me to speak to my father.
I was then a five year old boy and this unexpected act of his made me very nervous.
I heard my father's voice in the ear-phone. "Hello son. Are you there ? speak up." he had said.
"Sahib salaam", I said abruptly as I did not know what else to say and then, overawed, I ran out of the room !
Yes those were my first words on a phone. I heard my father laugh loudly in the earphone when I said this!
There used to be manually operated telephone exchanges in those days. Automatic dialling came later. " Number please ", a voice would say whenever I lifted the ear-phone off the hook and I would, in panic, replace the earphone hurriedly back on the hook.
After a few days of hesitation I learnt what to say. My school friend's number was 27 so I was told to just say "two . . seven" into the candlestick's mouthpiece. I did this and the next thing I heard was the voice of my school friend in the receiver. That was sheer magic! (Thank you Alexander Graham Bell).
We kids used to have our own tin-can telephones. It comprised of two (cigarette) tin-cans connected to each other by a very long thin cord. One of us spoke into a can and the other kid, standing far away received the message by keeping the cord stretched and placing the other can to the ear. But the real phone was some different. It enabled me to talk with ease and clarity to my friend who lived so far away!
Soon this "number please" guy got familiar with me and sometimes found time to chat. I fondly called him Verma uncle.
Like any child I kept asking too many questions about the working of the telephone and the whereabouts of this faceless "number please" chap so my parents ultimately decided to take me to the telephone exchange.
As I entered the heart of the telephone exchange building the first thing that caught my attention was the huge plug-board panel with innumerable plug-in cords and the blinking lights. And then I saw someone shifting plug-in cords and uttering "number please". This chap in his thirties turned out to be "uncle Verma" and was absolutely delighted to meet me. While talking to me he kept an eye on the plug-in board. A tiny bulb would suddenly light up and he , after his patent "number please" act, would plug-in some cords to connect the two numbers and resume talking to me !
That was a long time back, in my childhood, and is now a mere memory snapshot. As time rolled on our phone instrument kept changing. First replacement was a black phone with the transmitter and receiver built into a single hand-set unit which was connected to the cradle-base unit by a wire and rested on top of it when not in use. Then came the rotary dialling phones (and the automatic exchanges). Later we got a beautiful olive coloured push- button phone with buttons bearing number zero to nine and much more (in place of the rotary dial).
And then finally came the wonder of wonders - the mobile wireless phones.
The rest, as they say , is history !!
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