So, the telegram staff is about to pack up officially. And the side-effect has been that the good ole postman is feeling extremely insecure. “One…or maybe two years more at the most, and we’ll be bekaar also,” my neighbourhood’s regular dakiya lamented, but with a smile.
“How come you’re smiling?” I asked stupidly, to which the dakiya responded straight-faced, “At least then I can sit at home without my wife complaining that I’m doing nothing. My sons are grown-up, but they’re working abroad. Some months, they send us some money, some months they don’t. They also have their children to look after.”
The postman is in his mid-50s, and now actually stops to chat because he no longer has a sackful of mails to deliver. Whatever he has is bunched in his hand, and he can take his time to complete his round. “What’s the point in returning to the post-office and sitting idle there?” he shrugs, adding, “And there was a time when I had to run from door to door, slipping in the envelopes quickly under the door or in a mail-box. It wasn’t easy to complete my shift within time, but…I don’t how to say this…it would keep me physically fit.”
Aware that there’s no way snail-mail can ever make a comeback, in the face of rapid advances in email, courier services and cyber chats, the postman has accepted the fact that the end of his beat is near.
“We all have to go some day,” he smiled some more, pointing out that he doesn’t deliver perfumed love letters any more. “Mostly, it is bank statements, bills and some greeting cards that’s in our naseeb now. Earlier, we’d get baksheesh if, we were delivering some good news…or a long-expected letter or a notice of a job appointment.”
Official statistics haven’t been updated about the city’s strength of the postal force. But according to the dakiya — who requests anonymity in case he offends his superiors — postmen are on their way to becoming an extinct species. The last number he had heard about south Mumbai’s postmen was in the region of 1,500. Now, he guesstimates that the number couldn’t be more than 500. He may have got the numbers wrong, he admits, but asserts, “Our number has decreased by at least 70 per cent. So many of my colleagues have just retired…or passed away.”
He wouldn’t accept a cup of tea, stating that’s against the rules. All he wanted was for me to remember him next Diwali. “That’s the only time we can still ring the doorbells to request for some baksheesh. I think we deserve some — but only if the person who opens the door remembers that we still exist.” Touche.