Fresh out of college, I started working as an apprentice, learning the ropes in telecom technologies. At my workplace, there were plenty of punched tapes. If you want to know more about punched tapes, click the hyperlink. For the simpletons like me, I will briefly explain what punched tapes were in the seventies.
Punched tapes were made of paper. They were the medium used to transmit message data. These paper tapes were passed through a teleprinter reader to transmit messages between countries. The tape rolls were pre-impregnated with a light touch of oil to lubricate the reader and punch mechanism. They could not be easily torn apart. In the middle of the tape was a red plastic ring that held the tape roll together. Punched tapes were the pivot for all international communications in and out of Sri Lanka.
Teleprinter machines worked non-stop and required an uninterrupted supply of tapes as their media. The tapes could only be replaced when there was a lull in transmission. The apprentices learned the art of replacing them in seconds when message traffic was low. Wastage was not a factor when replacing them, driven by the need to avoid data loss. What did everybody do with the discarded tapes that had bits of unused tape left? They were discarded into wastepaper bins to be thrown away as rubbish.
Teleprinters/punching machine on the left and an unused punched tape on the right
The kid in me could not get my head out of these discarded tape rolls. I saw them as great toys to play with after work with my siblings and friends. They looked amazing. I could not let them go to waste. I packed a few in my bag.
Returning home from work with my sling bag on my shoulders, I was looking for the next adventure. Many of my friends hung out on the streets of my hometown. The chatterbox I was, I stopped to talk with them on my way home when hanging out was the thing one looked forward to. At an age, to impress my friends, I took out these gold nuggets, the discarded tapes from my bag, and showed them off to my friends. Gathering around me, they touched the magical tapes admiring them. In my workplace, they were of no value, simply discarded. But to the boys in my home village, they were a priceless marvel, something they had never seen before. (My workplace was the only communication gateway to the rest of the world from Sri Lanka back then).
Not stopping at the attention I got, I threw a tape roll as high as I could, pointing to a coconut tree, possibly to impress my friends. As the tape went up, it unwound the remainder tape, making waves, delighting the lads gathered around me. The plastic ring in the middle lodged itself on top of the coconut tree, many meters high. The long paper tape remained hanging, flying to the winds up in the air among the blue sky, making it a spectacle. Everyone remained mesmerised, looking at this wonderful thing hanging from a high-up and floating tree.
I was the star magician to them, the boy with magic tapes. It was my moment of fame. I rejoiced in it.
I continued this habit, picking up the discarded tapes and bringing them home to play in my neighbourhood after work.
On my way, home lived Rosalyn, my mother’s relative. Her four children were younger than me. I was their big brother. Rosalyn was always in the kitchen and loved baking cakes, cutlets, and pastries. I’d visit their house almost every day on my way home, knowing a small feast awaited me. With her gregarious, permanent smile, she fed me generously with her fantastic food every time I visited. After galloping her tasty food, I played with her children in their front yard, playing ball games and chasing each other. I took out the tape rolls to amuse them, throwing them up in the air and lodging them on their coconut trees. My little cousins’ faces were full of joy when the magical paper tapes flew in the air, decorating their front yard.
The coconut and fruit trees on our home property were not spared either. When bored, I went to the garden and threw bits of tape rolls on the trees. I gave away tape rolls to the kids in my neighbourhood, in my street., With my siblings, we played together in our front yard till sunset.
The local church was a hanging place for the youth from the neighbourhood. Not satisfied with depositing tapes on the adjoining coconut trees, my friends in the church compound threw some at the church on its pillars, many meters high. A white tape or two hung from the top of the church, remaining lodged. This was not a problem because nobody suspected me except one day when my father saw them while attending mass. He knew who the culprit was. That evening, he questioned me, and I admitted it with a smile that gave my guilt away. He did not admonish me but simply asked me not to throw them at the church hereafter. I feigned a smile and promised not to do that again.
Among my friend were many lads younger than me in my neighbourhood. We travelled to city schools in school buses together; some were still in school. I was a popular friend to them; every day, when I returned from work, I gave them a roll or two. I am sure those tapes ended up on the trees in their backyards.
Most evenings, I hung out with some of my buddies along the Kandy-Colombo road. Our regular spot was a house along this busy road where our friends, three brothers, Priya, Mangala and Jeeva, lived. We had absolute freedom in their home. It was where we chatted, smoked, drank and had fun sitting on their open veranda. On many a day, to kill our boredom, we sat on their parapet wall watching buses, lorries, cars, and bicycles pass by, amusing ourselves.
Back then, that road was not as wide as today, perhaps twenty metres wide. My friends were the ones to invent crazy ideas simply to have fun. When traffic was low, Edward laid one of my punched tapes across the road. Along this busy road, a white tape spanning from one end to the other against the black bitumen was highly visible to the road users. Rohan held the other end of the tape, and both pretended to be holding a measuring tape across the road. Now from a distance, it looked like two surveyors were holding a long measuring tape, measuring the road. Buses, cars and lorries slowed down on either side of the road, allowing the fake surveyors to hold the tape and complete their surveying job.
The rest of the boys, sitting on the wall, struggled to hold their giggle at how two friends managed to hold up the busiest road simply with paper. After holding the paper roll for a few minutes, Edward and Rohan pretended to retrieve the measuring tape, rolled the punched tape on its ring slowly and moved back to the side of the road. The bus drivers, lorry drivers, and everyone started slowly moving again, tooting their horns and thanking the pseudo surveyors, acknowledging their service in maintaining the roads.
Nobody at my workplace knew what I was doing with those discarded punched tapes in my hometown. They were technically state property. But it was great fun. No harm was done — memories to hold onto from my old country.
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