When your parents are
in government service, you are raised to respect the government. You are
provided justification upon justification on the state of affairs in the
country, a matter of endless rants in most other households. Parents in
government service come with perks, not limited to waiver of phone bills,
vacations in guest houses, and rides in a stately chauffeured Ambassador. Many
years later, you will look back at these days with a sigh of nostalgia while
standing in line at the passport office or the RTO.
Recently, a popular
entrance exam required its applicants to dispatch their applications using
either ‘ordinary’ post or registered post. “Better send it a week before the
deadline. You know how the postal department is”, a friend warned. How is it,
I wondered and went to the post office that weekend. It was a heavily
partitioned one-room space bustling with activity, much to my
surprise. Hadn't we heard enough times that nobody uses physical mail
or stamps these days? Well it appears as if India Post has found other ways to
keep its staff employed and occupied. This is commendable when you read about
several other legacy government organizations and PSUs deliberating on
downsizing and hiring freezes every day. IP probably learnt a thing
or two about calculated hiring after telegraph spiralled downward.
The crowd around me
was a mix of people from all walks of life—an elderly gentleman accessing his
savings account, a few people buying envelopes, a lady sending multiple speed
posts, and—to my delight—a young philatelist asking if there were new stamps
released recently. My speed post was bar-coded and a tracking number
was generated before one could say the name of a popular courier company. It
would reach in two days, said the lady at the counter, to a destination halfway
across the country. This with online tracking facility cost me about 60% less
than the average private courier service.
A new relationship
was forged that day. When I went there this morning to collect the entrance
exam’s score card, I left with an inland letter (remember those?), envelopes
and stamps to surprise my grandmother who loves receiving letters.