“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
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
