Hemantha Kalam - 74 'Vaarta Doota - The Postman'

 

“Until not very long ago

I was valued and awaited so

Now you have emails, you may not need me

But at your service I’ll always be.

 

I am a postman, a mail carrier

I deliver mail despite all barriers

On foot or a bicycle, I move around

In my uniform that’s blue, green or brown”

 

------APPUSERIES – ‘Postman –Rhymes on Profession’

 

The door bell rang and I dragged myself to the door after wearing a mask and gloves (thanks to COVID-19 scare) to open the door. On the other side was a postman waiting patiently for the door to open so that he can deliver the parcel. If it was a letter, he would have dropped it in the letter box. I was surprised to see a postman, as he was not expected and nowadays, with the advent of WhatsApp and Instagram even emails (except for inviting to webinars) have become far and few.

 

The parcel was soft and thin and did not show signs of any explosive known to me from my bookish knowledge. It was from one Ms. Roopa and has been posted from some remote unknown village from Andhra Pradesh. I knew some three Roopas but none fit this lady or were they from that village. Finally, I called the lady over her mobile (number taken from the ‘from address’ on the parcel) and asked who she was and what she had bestowed us by sending this parcel. She too did not know who I was and said that she must have sent some ware that she produces in her cottage industry, in response to some order placed online from somebody in Chennai. 

My curiosity was aroused, but then this damn quarantining is taking place to open the parcel immediately and see the content/s. So, after a couple of days of fuming, fumigating and quarantine, I opened the parcel trepidatiously. It was nothing but a customised bag with many sections within one bag, to fetch vegetables. Though we do not need that bag or could not use in the present circumstances, it was ordered online by my daughter from USA, through some lady in Chennai, as she wanted to help a poor woman artisan in a remote village with a tiny winy bit of a livelihood. Now the point here actually is that village, apparently, does not have a courier facility and the good old trustworthy post office’s services were sought.

 

I fondly remembered the days when I used to long for the postman to arrive. The first time was when I used to collect wrappers from a confectionery toffee called ‘Fruittee’ from a certain Calcutta Confectionery Works, where inside the wrappers used to be pictures of animals and birds, mostly extinct. They were also making other confectionery items like ‘Fruit Bubble Gum’ whose inner wrappers gave you pictures of birds, ‘Flag Chewing Gum’ which gave you inner wrappers of national flags of the countries in the world and  ‘Milky Way’ that gives you inner wrappers of air crafts. We keep buying the toffees and keep collecting the wrappers. Once in a while, there would be a lucky coupon which will get us an album to stick the pictures of the wrappers we had so far collected. There will be a space, in the album, for each animal, bird, or flag or an aircraft to be stuck and below each a brief explanation and importance of the picture - more in a detailed blog soon.

 

The wait for the post man bringing the albums home used to be excruciating. The confectionery office used to be in Mahim, Bombay (now Mumbai). We have to get a lucky coupon and then send it to Bombay along with a cover letter indicating our address; that letter has to reach Bombay, get processed, an album sent and travel all the way to Madras (now Chennai) to be delivered to our home. The whole process used to take a minimum of a month and a maximum of one and half month. I was after the postman every day after the first week. To get the blank album was sheer ecstasy, believe me.

 

The other exciting aspect of the post is the philately section. during the mid 1970s to early 1980s, I was fervently collecting stamps and first day covers issued on the day of the release of a new stamp and have got a decent collection – the rarest among them are a first day cover of  the stamp on Late V. V. Giri, the President of India, with his original signature, an envelope where the ink is not printed on the permanent stamp, an envelope that was partly burnt and rescued from a flight accident that took place (again) in Bombay circa 1976-77 (I think it was flight 171 from Chennai to Mumbai where the flight with some 95 passenger, crashed on the Mumbai airport without survivors). 

On the day of the release of a new stamp, I used to bicycle to Mount Road Main Post office from my home (which was some eight kilometres of distance) where they had a philatelic bureau and where the first day covers used to be sold. Trust me, there used to be long queues in front of the special counters and the postal officials used to affix stamps and seal with care. Their attention to detail itself used to give a high.

 

Collecting stamps was a fad. In those days the stamps from India, in my candid opinion, used to be quite ordinary and drab. It is only from the mid-1970s that the Indian post started bringing world class stamps which reflect our ethos and culture to some extent. Stamps from countries like Hungary, Malta, Granada and Singapore were beautiful and used to be in real demand.

 

The most exciting part of the post for people of those days was to receive job call letters. As most of the people could not have telephones in their houses (the wait list to have a telephone at home used to be at least a year deep even in the 1990s), job calls were sent by post. If getting a job call was exciting, just imagine what an appointment letter for a job can do? People used to be super excited.

 

In addition to these, telegram and money order services, Value Payable Post (VPP) services were also offered by post offices not to forget the postal savings schemes. There used to be mobile post offices - one postal van with brightly illuminated counters used to be regularly parked at Panagal Park, T. Nagar, Chennai after 6.00 pm so that people, especially those from offices, who missed the regular post office timing could come and send their mail without delay for a fraction of an additional cost. And then the Railway Mail Services (RMS) used to be there too, where one can rush to the railway station and pay a little extra to ensure that the mail was received and sent on that day itself. The name 'Mail' for some of trains emanated mainly because of the postal service. There used to be one or two full compartments with a sorting office on the trains.

 

Old people receiving money from children, students staying in hostels for studying - getting money from their parents in their native places, sending telegrams - the harbinger of good and bad news and for other emergency messages (which normally used to be delivered in a span of an hour to two after receiving) were all services that were much valued.

 

In mid July 2013 when the Telegram services were closed once for all, no one would have perhaps rued that as much as I did because for two years, it was the telegram service that saved me from difficult situations, while I was repossessing assets from financial defaulters. After repossessing an asset, we used to send telegrams to both the defaulter and the police station of the jurisdiction that such an asset has been re-possessed on such and such date, time and place for default of payment and it is not to be considered a theft. As the Posts and Telegraph department belonged to Central government, they became involved as a witness in case there have been adverse cases filed against us, the repossessors.

 

Despite many jokes against the postal department, most of the staff used to be dedicated and knew the people in their area better than today’s Banks’ Know Your Customer (KYC) system. If you are searching for an address in a new place, inevitably it will be the post man (for a long time it was the post man but over a period there are as many post women) who comes to your rescue and guide you correctly.

 

Postmen like Mr. D. Sivan, who walks through mountains and treks long kilometres on mountainous trails with the sole object of connecting the people with their dear ones through post needs a mention here (https://www.thehindu.com/society/old-man-and-the-mountain/article32122988.ece#:~:text=Coonoor%2Dbased%20Sivan%20rose%20to,which%20was%20in%20March%2C%20broke.).

 

Mr. Sivan is now known and acknowledged. We do not know how many silent unknown such Sivans are working in the department in our country. Kudos and respects to all of them!

 

Today, we all talk of academic literacy, digital literacy and financial literacy. How many of us have postal literacy? Just try to remember when you went in to a post office for the first time and when did you do it last?

 

I vividly remember my first tryst with a post office. Before they moved into larger premises in Sivagnanam Road, T. Nagar, Chennai, they had the T. Nagar post office on the ground floor in a building, sharing the first floor with New Deluxe Lodge, in Pondy Bazaar, T. Nagar and opposite to Holy Angels’ School.

 

My father gave me a parcel and asked me to book it under registered post in this post office. That was the first time I ever entered into a post office. Though I was about 15 years old by then, I was overwhelmed by the largeness of the operations and was scared to approach anyone to understand what I should do. I asked someone who made me go to a particular counter. There, the guy behind the counter weighed the packet and told me to get so much worth of stamps. I went and stood in a queue, got the stamps, pasted them on the parcel, dumped the parcel in the bin for parcels and returned home.

 

That evening, after returning from office, my father asked whether I had sent the parcel and if so, the receipt. Now I didn’t have any receipt and so I related what happened. He was irritated to no end because the parcel was official and he needed the receipt both for the proof of posting it as well as for claiming the expenses.

 

Poor guy, this was only one of many disappointments I gave him in his lifetime. He had to wait on tenterhooks for almost 10 days till the parcel was delivered at the destination and he could heave a sigh of relief.

 

Today, we may not be able to appreciate the role of Indian Posts and Telegraphs in our lives but they did play a major role – so much so that in 2013, I had, as a part of an assignment, suggested to the Madhya Pradesh Government to deliver all microfinance requirements of the people in the villages through the postal department as no one else  in the state had such wide network.

 

I am gratified to note that in this difficult COVID-19 situation, it is the postmen who became moving ATMs and provided money.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/when-the-postman-acts-as-a-human-atm/article32315734

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/banking/finance/high-tech-delivery-to-land-at-postmans-doorstep/articleshow/60801436.cms?from=mdr

https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/postmen-in-kerala-to-act-as-mobile-atms-can-withdraw-upto-rs-10-000-a-day--1.4138663

   

If we say India progressed ahead after the independence, I swear that the Indian Posts and Telegraphs has had a major role in it filling that important part of communications.

So amigos, please do let me know of your thoughts!

 

Till the next, so long!

 

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic), Shukriya (Urdu), Bohoma Sthuthiyi (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Dankie (Afrikaans), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian & Malay), Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea), Malo (Tonga) and Vinaka (Fiji).

 

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

Chennai, India