Give Me A Call :) ~ Yesteryear

Have you ever seen a phone like this? I have. Actually this is mine :)

This was once my grandparent's property. Actually, both my grandparents had one back in the day. I still remember how my grandfather rotated that tiny little handle or crank, I don't even know how to all it. English is not my first language, so be gentle with me :) So my grandfather rotated that handle, the operator picked up the phone, my grandfather told her the address where he wanted to call and was told to wait for the call. Then after some time the phone rang and the operator told him he can speak now. This is how it worked. As you can see there's no dial here, not numbers, no buttons.

At first in small villages there were no telephone numbers, you had to tell the actual address, later they gave you a number which was your village name and a number.

It was a very cumbersome and nerve wrecking process. Sometimes you had to wait an hour or so. The operator noted your order on a paper, sometimes the lines were busy, sometimes they forgot about your order or your order got lost. The operator could listen to every word you said and sometimes didn't end the call when you did and charged more than they should.

I've been planning to post this photo for a while but was waiting for the right moment. Now @daveks is running the B&W Photo Contest and this week's theme is ~ Yesteryear. Read more about it here. This is my first entry. I used a Nikon Coolpix A100.