The Telephone Exchange

Imagine running a school with three hundred girls without a telephone. There was a telephone in the school. It had been out of order since the past six months. Communication with the outside world was possible only in cases of emergency by rushing to the police station and relaying a wireless message.

We had been cooped up in the school due to the rains since our arrival. The principal got the idea that we could accompany her to the local telephone exchange in the jeep so that we could at least see the surrounding countryside and she could check up how the repairs are progressing.

The telephone exchange turned out to be a tower and a room half a kilometer off the tarred road. We were in Arunachal but we were still close enough to Assam for BSNL to be extra careful about their assets. The tower and room were surrounded by a thick and very tall reinforced concrete wall with one small strong steel gate.

An extraordinary scene greeted us when we went through that gate. One look inside and at the keeper of this telephone exchange and what I instantly thought of was Robinson Crusoe.

The poor man was living all alone in his fortress with no work for the past six months surrounded by strange tribal folk. To pass the time and probably to prevent himself from going crazy, he had kept himself buzy with his tiny plot of land within the tall wall.

With plenty of time, a bore well and the wonderful Arunachal weather so condusive for vegetative growth, this man had made himself a garden of eden on government property.

Vegetables grew in neat rows . There were chickens scampering about . There was even a small hut in a corner for some goats he had bought.

This exchange served a grand total of seventy two customers . Some electronic parts had gone bad . Finding a person to deliver the parts and to fit them properly was the real challenge. 

The school telephone did start ringing eventually . It took six more moths after our return to Pune. The school was without a phone for more than a year.