From lal dhol to locked screens

A postman was once an indispensable part of society. He was considered an important member of one’s family. In my childhood, I remember how we would celebrate his arrival in our village. He generally came once a week because he served many villages. His responsibility was not limited to delivering letters and collecting those dropped in the letterbox, lal dhol (red drum), he also had to read letters. He knew the relatives of almost all the villagers and would show concern for a family’s welfare if no letter had arrived from a particular relative. He even suggested matrimonial alliances among villagers’ kith and kin. In those days, we usually wrote postcards, and there was little privacy. Whoever received a postcard would read and share its contents with the addressees. People in our village often complained to the postman if they had not received letters from their relatives for a long time, as if he were responsible for it.

Our school was on the outskirts of the village, and there was no boundary wall.  Whenever the postman came near, we gathered around him and chanted: “A postman is a busy man/ Collecting letters in his van/ To catch the evening mail, he goes to GPO.” He used to enjoy it. Children would ask for letters addressed to their homes. The postman was so familiar with every child that he often handed over letters for an entire street to one of us and asked us to deliver them. Perhaps he would otherwise be asked not only to read the letters but also to help the recipients write replies.

It was generally believed that the postman knew all the senders of letters and the contents of the letters. One day, after delivering letters in our neighbourhood, he came to our house, and my grandfather offered him buttermilk. He sat in the shade of a tree, relishing the drink. At that moment, a lady came in haste and asked him about the sender and the contents of a letter he had just delivered to her house. He was surprised and somewhat annoyed at her inquisitiveness. Sensing his discomfort, she explained that her goat had chewed up the letter he had delivered minutes earlier. It was impossible for her to know who had written it or what it contained. That was why she had come running after him. He laughed at her innocence and assured her that he would take care of it in future.

Nowadays, everyone has a personal email address. Mobile phones are locked. Life has become confined to the self. The innocence of that harmonious society has been lost, replaced by the constant presence of electronic gadgets in our hands.