Of Posts and Postmen

Not many postmen are seen today and even if they’re, the characteristic khaki uniform is missing. Well, I owe a lot to postmen for I guess my journey into writing began with an essay penned on ‘The Postman’ at the age of ten years. It was thoroughly appreciated by the teacher and even pasted on the Notice board of the Primary Section in the School for all to read and admire. Though I had penned the essay as an answer to a question in the examination my teacher found it difficult to believe it at first. I remember her calling me outside the classroom and enquiring if it was me who had written the essay. When I think about it now, her question was hilarious but I answered it all the same with the innocence of a ten year old! How else it could have appeared on the answer sheet? I wonder.

As a kid I was fascinated by the letters, parcels, postcards and envelopes the postman carried. The postman who visited our house wore a khaki uniform. He rode a bicycle which had a bell that went ‘Tri-i-n-n-g-g! Trin-n-g-g!’ when he dismounted from his bicycle to deliver a letter or envelope at our door. Whether summer, winter or rainy, he was there, diligently bringing the post. He carried a bag which he side slung about his person. A few letters he held in his hand and others he kept trapped in his cycle carrier at the back. I never knew his name but he was welcomed with much joy. Sometimes he would be in a hurry, he would call out, ‘Postman!’ drop the letters in the garden and go. My sister and I, we would run out to find letters or envelopes among the scattered yellow leaves of the two huge Neem trees we had. What a lovely picture they made!

Letters, envelopes and parcels bring back happy memories of summer vacations and the delightful afternoon meals of dal, rice, raw mango pickle, fried popadums, stuffed capsicums and sweetened curd. Oh what heavenly days, those were! We weren’t allowed to go into the garden in the hot sunshine to collect the letters. My grandmother would narrate stories of devils prowling around between noon and three o’clock. During winters, letters were received in the garden teeming with the fragrance of chrysanthemums and marigolds. I can still picture my grandmother sitting in her favourite sunny corner of the garden, reading a letter or card. Just behind her would be the ‘jungle jalebi’ she had managed to ‘tame’ into a neat hedge with endless trimmings.

One of the reasons the postman was such an endearing character to me as a kid was the ‘Dhara’ cooking oil advertisement. I loved to think of ‘Ramu Kaka’ as a postman who ‘accidentally’ comes upon Babloo at the railway station and informs the little ‘runaway’ that his mother is preparing ‘jalebis’. If Babloo was cute with his complaints and the squeaky utterance of ‘jalebi’ Ramu Kaka was absolutely charming with the right amount of tact and actions to describe a jalebi so as to tempt little Babloo to accompany him home. What a brilliant advertisement! It captivated old and young, everyone alike! I was no exception.

In recent years, the short story – ‘The Letter’ by Dhumketu brought a new perspective to letters and their worth to people... ‘The postmaster now watched them as eagerly as though they contained a warm beating heart. He no longer thought of them in terms of envelopes and postcards. He saw the essential worth of a letter.’ This deeply emotional story talks about Coachman Ali who is waiting for a letter for five years from his only child, a daughter, Miriam. No one understands his pain not even the postmaster who then later finds himself in a similar situation when his daughter falls ill in another town and finally ‘the newly-wakened father’s heart in him was reproaching him for having failed to understand Ali’s anxiety, for now he himself had to spend another night of restless anxiety.’ This story never fails to bring tears to my eyes.

Well, it’s been years now that a postman has visited my home to deliver any letter, parcel or envelope. Unfortunately, with advancing technology postmasters, postmen and post offices have become redundant. They exist so to say in some other world, in the old, dark and forgotten corners of cities and our psyches.

Image: Des Panteva