FINGER ON YOUR LIPS

GRAND OLD POST OFFICE

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

 

05/VI/2022

 

Post offices have now come in the endangered species list, heading towards extinction. The good old post cards, inland letters and telegrams died their own death with the changing times. The other day I spotted a post box after ages. The amount of dust accumulated on it was telling its story.

 

The Khaki clad postman with a Navy-blue cloth bag on a bicycle used to be such a welcome site. We could hear his bell ring from the end of our lane. As kids we would desperately wait for him to stop by with a letter or a telegram or a money order.

 

Till my Granddad was alive I used to receive a money order of ten rupees every year, with a small note attached. Thank you, ‘Toto Uncle’, as he was fondly called. He lived to be around close to a hundred years. May his soul rest in peace.

 

The Army post office played a very important role in our lives. All correspondence exchanged between me, my would-be wife and later wife was all courtesy the Army postal channels and then the civilian postman, who had to visit  my in-laws place almost every day.

 

With no telephones or limited ones available, your only link was a handwritten letter. Before the Dispatch Rider left the unit, a letter had to be sent. The ‘red fauji inland’ was our lifeline and sealing it was just a ‘lick’ away.

 

One would just dream of its journey. From the unit to the post office, where the postmaster would stamp them & sort them by their destinations in those square boxes on a wooden shelf. Pin codes came much later. Shoved in a water proof bag and sealed, with a stamp affixed with ‘ burning dripping lac’. Now no one could tamper with it thereafter.

 

A red coloured van, of the same colour as the post box would carry those bags to the railway station. Those days we had ‘Mail trains’ with a special RMS (Railway Mail Service) bogie. Those bogies had letter dropping slots. One could post letters on this mail train. The whole RMS department would be in a frenzy before and after a mail train would arrive at a station. Letters, parcels, packets and what have you, would travel across the country in that train.

 

I remember, even we as a family travelled in an RMS coach once. The RMS bogie incharge that day happened to be Dad’s fishing friend. We had to travel with no reservations and lots of luggage at short notice. Uncle took us inside that bogie at his risk. That bogie had a few seats and berths for the crew only. Letter sorting boards were all around. One side was for parcels, we made ourselves comfortable on the floor. It was there that one saw how our letters actually moved. We too travelled like a parcel, a journey never to be forgotten.

 

I would accompany Dad to the post office many times. At home we had that ‘telegram forms’ always handy. I do remember that they charged for every word telegraphed. Instead of writing ‘Many Happy returns of the day’ he would just write ‘5’. The mystery was solved when Dad showed us a board where those codes were written.

 

In the company one was working with, there was a post box which was badly rusted. The swinging lid from where the letters were collected was stuck half open. ‘Next clearance’, 4pm was written on a black tin piece that was still there. If it was reversed, 9.30 am was written. In the good old days, a bus to Bombay would leave at 10.30 am and then at 6 pm. ‘Dak’ used to go in them.

 

The other day, we had to send a parcel so we had to visit a post office. Nothing much has changed except these days there is a common counter for all services. It was close to 1pm. There were three people ahead of us and the clerk announced, ye last hai, iske baad ‘ded’ baje khulega, lunch ke baad. Dot at one he left all work and walked off.

 

As I stood there one thing caught my eye. They used to make ‘levy’ a kind of adhesive made out of wheat flour. That glue used to be kept in tin cans, with a stick stuck in it for applying it to whatever you wanted to stick. That tradition still continues. On a wooden counter there was this plastic tumbler stuck in a circular slot with a stick as the applicator there.

 

Some things just won’t change, like the adhesive with a stick and the attitude of the post office clerk. It felt good to recall old memories. How many days till post offices become extinct? I wonder!!!!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND

© NOEL ELLIS