When I was young I had taken to the hobby of pen friendship. I wonder whether the present generation  knows the excitement of pen friendship. I am not going to write on that hobby tonight. The centre stage today in this post is the ever green postman. I was always fascinated by him. In fact, it was almost on the verge of envy and jealousy. I envied him because he could carry the letters of people whom he knows or who are simply strangers to him. He is a person who has no enemies in his beat. Every one used to have a good word of him. The only ‘Government official’ for whom people used to wait. One could always hear people ask, “did the post man come today?† Now a days hardly do we hear his name being said or hardly people extend their necks to see whether the post man had passed his house. He is almost becoming a non entity in the human affairs. His golden days are over.
Whenever I used to see him carrying several letters in his hands without giving me even one letter, I used to feel disappointed. (  Is it Kiddish ?! ). I remember when I was a small kid once I asked the post man did I have a letter and he smiled and said first grow up and then you might start receiving letters. I wondered why one should grow up to get letters! My childish prank made me to buy one post card and scribble my name and address on it. I posted it in the post box which was found hanging on a pillar of a house near our Fire Service Station.( Now even these  red Post Boxes have become a rare item). From then on, I started  hanging around the entrance gate of our compound waiting for the post man to deliver the letter to me. In those days the post man used to deliver letters twice a day, once in the morning and again in the evening. First two days,  he just passed by me even without looking at me. I felt I was transparent to him. On the third day, I was sure he would have the card for delivery. So as soon as I cited his figure at a distance only, I stood showing my back to the road so that the post man should ask me whether it was me whose name was there on the letter and say ‘hi, you have a letter’. Our postman was a bit aged and hence he always used to drag his feet while walking. When I heard him coming closer to me, I felt very much excited as I was to get a letter delivered by a post man!! From the corner of my left eye I just tried to look at his hands which contained a bundle of letters tied by a thread. I knew one card in that bundle was mine. But to my great disappointment, he walked past me, opened the gate and just briskly walked to my house. My mother was standing there at the door. He took the card from his bundle and held and extended his hand and said ‘amma, there is a letter’ and gave the card to her. She was surprised to see my handwriting on the card. She called the postman and said that the card was the mischief of her son who perhaps wanted the postman to deliver a letter to him. He just stared at me and must have either laughed to himself or cursed me for making him to go those extra steps to deliver the card to my house. Though he had dampened my excitement by not delivering the card to me, I was happy and contentend that I too could get letters delivered by a postman. Now when I look back, I laugh at my own idioncrasis as a child but I think such small pleasures made the child hood a real exciting one. The post man was the cause for it.
It was this eagerness to get letters delivered by the post man made me to take up the hobby of penfriendship. Post men are really the harbingers of hopes for many. He brings not only good news but also bad news. He is the connecting link between people who are at two different places in the world. In those days, when postal service was the only means of communication, the people used to wait for him like the water starved people wait for rains. Lovers could communicate with each other only through letters and postman was their friend. He would bring appointment letters. He used to bring money sent by the relations to the aged parents. I know once when our illiterate servant received a letter from her son who was working in Bombay, it was the post man who read it out to her as she was anxious to know the contents. He not only brought letters but also used to read for them. In villages, he was their guide and philosopher also as he used to get full information about the family affairs
But it is a pity that the modern technology has made his presence redundant. People have now taken to fast mode of communication such as emails or sms etc. Everyone, rich or poor, carry a mobile in their hands. Landlines have become very cheap. Hence for the present generation, the charm of waiting for the postman to deliver the letters and the excitement connected with them are now missing. But even now whenever I see a postman, I still start recollecting those exciting moments which the post man gave to me.