A MESSY MESH

There is an electrical pole right in front of our dwelling in Indore. Nothing out of the ordinary the pole lodged there except that it has been adorned with all kinds of cables and wires and not just electrical cable it is supposed to be used for. I know, that is the case with most of these poles, it’s almost like a doggy syndrome, you know what I mean, when a dog notices a a pole, it immediately goes on to mark its territory there. Similarly give a pole to the cable wallah, CCTV guy, Internet broadband connectivity chap or just about anyone else who has a cable connection, they latch on to the pole immediately and then they go on to weave the most intricate web, which I bet even spiders can’t decipher or unentangle. Ever wondered, why Spiderman steers clear of India and sticks to the US of A, obviously the intricate webs that he has seen in the Chandni Chowk area gave him the shivers. Not only was he incapable of generating such a cable mangle but he suffered from nightmares that he had got entangled in one of these himself and unable to extricate. 

In sports, the expression Pole position is reserved for the one who is ahead in any race, well we are definitely in that coveted position as far as the mesh or should I say the ‘mess’ that we have so imaginatively created. With all these wires dangling at all possible angles, it is amazing that the  local cable wallah still manages to not only identify and isolate his own line and but manages to solve the problem too that too in a matter of minutes, putting even AI to shame, I bet. We studied certain laws by Kirchhoff on the current and voltage in a mesh, I am sure even in. his wildest imagination he could have conjured such a mess, where all his laws would have  given up.

Being a Signaller having spent my professional life entangled in cables and wireless, I must say that we in the army need to take a leaf out of the local cable wallah, as fault finding on a cable route was a herculean task even when we had just a handful of them. We set up an elaborate labelling system, even varying the shapes and sizes of these labels for ease of identification, and here they are, as though armed with some magical powers, they just hit the pole and do the course corrections. But then, in the bargain, other cables and wires do end up becoming casualties, as cable TV takes precedence over broadband internet fibres. After all the ‘Saas-bahu’ sagas being beamed on the TV ensures peace and tranquility at home, else the drama may be replayed in real life. 

In field areas we used bobbins ( small cylindrical objects made of bone china, for securing of cables  on a pole) on the ‘Pole Octagonal 16 feet Multi Air Line’ or ‘MAL poles’ in short, to keep our cables over ground, lest they be trampled by the movement of troops and vehicles, and disrupt the lines of communication. Then there were Permanent Line (PL) poles which even the erstwhile P&T department too used extensively, but the cables here were hard drawn copper or galvanised iron wires. But that was a different era when number of cables were limited, except in formation headquarters camps, where snakes of cables would emanate from the local exchange and fault control to the subscribers, who could be spread in anywhere between a couple of hundred square metres to a couple of  square kilometres. Here, an amateur  rookie lineman could end up creating a schemozzel. Imagine the precarious situation with cables crisscrossing  amidst all the frenetic activities including shelling from the enemy and the most vital line down, heads would roll literally and figuratively too. These lines were the vital arteries of operations being conducted as also the logistics associated with it, there was no scope for any down time here, as everyone’s life depended on it.

Be that as it may, this messy affair, apart from being an eyesore, is also a fire hazard and highly environment unfriendly as at times even small birds can get trapped or hurt by the wires. In developed countries cabling is underground, wonder when they are as it is digging up the place day in and day out, why can’t they simply do the same for electrical cables also, doing away with the poles altogether. They could even leave conduits for the cable, broadband or any other future such wired requirements, earning revenue for the services as well; but then that requires planning, vision and foresight, we unfortunately work only in hindsight.