“I have sent a telegram to their guardians as well as their parents. Be careful" 🥺

A Cyclone and Its Havoc | in MCC School

“If any boy out here wishes to support his friend, and hides the truth…”

#memoriesfromdiaries

#mccschool #hostelyears #hscdays

In today’s Chennai Edition of The Times of India, I read an infographic which said that, The first official telegram message was sent on this particular day - 24th May 1844, by Samuel F.B. Morse.

The message, which read “What hath God wrought?”, was transmitted over an experimental line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore.

This made me ruminate on the role of the telegram message that was in vogue, in the 1980s and 1990s when we were in our school and college days respectively.

A telegram was the invincible vajrayutha used by the establishment to threaten us – students - into silence and goodness as well. 😊

When a student did some mischief in class or in the hostel, the next line that would come from our Warden or Teacher was, ‘I will send a telegram to your parents! Mind you’. 😊

On this particular day, i.e., 31st October 1994, a huge cyclone with a windspeed of 132 kmph, hit Madras (today: Chennai), between 1 am and 2 am, resulting in widespread havoc and destruction across the City.

Added, because of the cyclone, we did not have our routine morning jogging in the playground. 

This gave me an extended time on slumber mode till 6.40 am 😊

Then, after having ‘booris’ for breakfast, we went to the playground, with a teenager’s excitement and curiosity all over us. We were surprised to see the entire playground resembling a beach!

For the first time, we saw our playground in knee-deep water.

Some of our mischievous hostelers – Regi and Ganesh were carpe-dieming on the opportunity, by indulging in all sorts of pranks - letting all our slippers float on the water, etc., and some had even gone to the extent of bursting crackers in the dormitory, to celebrate the holiday that was declared for the city.

That’s when trouble bombed on us, you see! 

By 11.30 am, Rajan Sir, our warden, came to our dormitories and announced over the Public Address System that, our Headmaster Mr. Jefferson Christopher wanted to meet all of us.

We were all worried!

And as A. G. Gardiner says in his short story titled, “All About A Dog” -

I saw trouble brewing! 

Well, you see, the HM doesn’t come visiting us, unless it’s something serious. Hence we were all awaiting his arrival with anxiety writ large on our faces! 

Quite soon, as expected, our Headmaster marched into our dormitory, and thundered -

“If any boy out here wishes to support his friend, and hides the truth, one day, I will note down and find the suspecting boys and dismiss them!”.  

He then cited the case of Prince, Reggie, Jim and Dinesh, who were dismissed from the hostel, just the past week, for violating hostel rules.

“I have sent a telegram to their guardians as well as their parents. I have dismissed them from the hostel. Be careful”, he roared.

PS: In the good ol’ past, say 30 years ago, a telegram [not the cloud-based mobile and desktop messaging app] 😊 was the best way to convey information quickly to the intended recipient. It was a written message [usually an urgent letter] that was transmitted using an electric device. Added, back then, a telegram was the only alternative to the private telephone and the whatsapp of today.