The last typewriter

Over the final four days of April 2011 the Godrej and Boyce factory in Bombay, which claims to be the last plant anywhere in the world to manufacture office typewriters, was inundated with 500 requests to purchase the few remaining pieces. "The mad scramble is the final page in the remarkable story of a machine that kicked off an industrial trend… and spurred a generation of women steno-typists to financial independence,” reported Sunday Mid Day (SMD) on May 1, 2001. The factory stopped production in 2009.

There are only 200 pieces left in the factory, most of them in the Arabic script. "If you want one you’ll have to bid for it. It enjoys antique status and most callers want to purchase it as a collectible, it seems,” joked Milind Dukle, general manager, operations of Godrej and member of the special design team at the typewriter plant, speaking to SMD about the sudden spurt in demand.

When it commenced production in 1955, the Godrej plant in Satara was the first one in Asia, notes Daily News and Analysis (DNA) on April 27, 2011. Production peaked in the 1980s when 50,000 pieces were manufactured each year, mostly for use in government offices, courts, corporations and defense establishments. The company built up a range offering models in 40 languages, three sizes and advanced from manual to electric and eventually to electronic typewriters, mentions SMD. But by early 2009, with the ubiquitous presence of the computer in most offices, demand fell and the original staff strength of 1,200 was reduced to 100 while production fell to 10,000 pieces. Factory workers were re-trained and moved to other departments when production stopped later that year.

Gajanan Satam, a typewriter mechanic working at Mantralaya, the state government headquarters told DNA that there were 35 workers like him when he joined in 1981. Today there are barely five. "I suppose that after 10 years when the last mechanic retires, there will be no typewriters to service,” he commented.

The typewriter played a central role in the functioning of one of Bombay’s oldest typing institutes, the 110-year-old Davar’s College at Flora Fountain. Thirty years ago the air would have resonated with clicks, clangs and dings as students practiced finger operating exercises under principal Puran Davar’s watchful eyes, notes SMD. Today there is a "hush of modest clicks” as students learn how to type using a computer keyboard. "We started the secretarial course in the 1950s but it was in the 80s that numbers peaked. We had 265 students per batch,” says Davar. Today there are 40 per batch.

Only one typewriter survives, locked away in storage, its keys bunching together when hit as a result of 12 years of neglect. Most of the 75 typewriters at Davar’s College were donated to a charity in 1998 when the switchover to computers was effected, reported SMD. According to DNA, the institute does not offer typewriting courses any more though shorthand is still taught.

Homai Mehta, director of the J. J. College of Commerce informed Parsiana: "We were very much associated with Godrej.” In fact the over 50 year old commercial institute had an entire Godrej Typewriting Wing which was inaugurated in 1967 by Sohrabji Godrej. In 1986 word processing was introduced on the Godrej word processor. When computer education appeared on the syllabus in 1991, three Godrej typewriters were retained for emergency use until 2000 when they were phased out altogether, she revealed.