Post office — Endangered species?
“ — Runner is running long, so at night the bell ‘ding-dong’” (Sukanta Bhattacharya)
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It was a chilly December of 2025. I was coming up, the birds were singing, and everything was as usual. I was about to take a sunbath on the rooftop of my house. Suddenly, my Android rang up with a Whatsapp video call. On the opposite side, my young son was there. My young son was asking me, “Papa, what are you doing?” I was deeply absorbed with some yellow letters sent by my father. My father is not in an earthly body. The blue letters are still green amidst the yellow canvas. I conveyed to my son about those days that I had spent with my father through my father’s lens. Let me tell you the story of a chilly winter. “See, my son, Nobody sends letters in the jet age. Yesterday, I was spending my solitude with some letters sent by your grandpa. The letters have become outdated, and the post office will soon be extinct. Have you seen that Denmark has stopped its official mail service there? Often, I used to talk about nature, its exploitation, and the hidden dangers of the environment. I am going to talk about a living species that is now under threat and is soon going to become extinct due to various injudicious activities. But the answer is not as you anticipated. I am going to explore the oldest system of human communication network across the globe to send messages from and to. The post office really deserves to be a species for social communication as it caters to the medium for spreading human values, and with its branches. Have you read the short stories like Dhumketu’s “The Post Office”? Here, the father patiently waits at the post office for a letter from has only and beloved daughter and it is the saga of the paternal love and the bureaucratic indifference amidst the irony of the ground reality. The father dies with the passage of time, but the love and the search for a letter from his daughter still speaks the eternal, untold bonding between the father and daughter, irrespective of the landscape of Kutch or Kajakasthan Mountain. Have you read the most classic example of this landscape of Rabindranath Tagore’s “The Post Office” where a sick child, Amol, patiently waits to get the letter from the almighty as a part of his innocent portrait of love towards life? Another story of Tagore is “Post Master,” where a city-bred man turned post master, and the untold relationship of an orphan girl in a remote village has been nicely portrayed with deep psychological insight. Another beautiful story by Gregorio Lopez Y Fuentes, entitled “A Letter to God,” where a simple farmer named Lencho used to write a letter to God asking for help to overcome his failure during the cultivation of crops. These awesome gems from the short stories Ocean speak of the relationship between man and the physical and spiritual world have been discovered with a very fascinating tune. Besides these, think about the remote village from a plateau or the sandy desert, a woman is earnestly waiting to receive a letter from her sweetheart to know his wellness or sorrows and sufferings. Recall the face of the poorest of the poor guy who was waiting to receive a letter of appointment to overcome his hardships. Can you imagine a girl waiting in the muddy house to acknowledge the love and good wishes from his soldier father who has deployed himself for the safety and security of the countrymen? The red boxes either in the post offices or the post boxes in front of the gate are now becoming yellow day by day. The endless wait has now become the simple gesture of a millisecond to receive an email to acknowledge any kind of information. encrypted thereon irrespective of the nature of messages, whether the bouquet of love and merriment or the stones of sorrows and sufferings. But the history of postal communication dates back to more than 2500 years. Around 2400 BCE, Egypt introduced the courier system to send decrees via messengers by the Pharaohs. In the 6th century BCE, the Persians developed an efficient relay system with post houses to deliver messages. Around 1000 BC, China introduced a postal system under the Zhou dynasty. Another great leap in postal history took place in the early days of Imperial Rome. Italy was the hub of commerce and innovation during the middle Ages. The 19th century experienced significant postal reforms in Britain though an independent, distance independent postal rate with adhesive postage stamp. The Post Denmark or PostNord Denmark started its journey in 1624. As International mail exchange became greater in the network, the General Postal Union, eventually the Universal Postal Union was established in the year 1874. The 20th century brought rapid advancements after the introduction of airmail service. India’s postal root trace back to ancient times when pigeons were used for communication. In the epics era of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the systems were developed but in different forms. Even the mythology offers good recipes in this thought. Chandragupta Maurya is credited with the development of the postal system. Under the Mughal era, a sophisticated postal system emerged, particularly through the active patronage of Sheer Shah Suri (1541–1545). The British East India Company transformed India’s postal network to expedite colonial administration. By the 20th century, the Indian postal system having more than 1, 60, 000 post officer can be treated as one of the largest postal services in the world. Today, the rise of electronic communication has brought a revolution in this domain. The red letter boxes outside the post offices and the post man and their endless movements to convey the messages of love, merriment, and other valued services are shortly become to be extinct in the context of super highways digital network garnished with 5G and upcoming 6G networks. Denmark’s postal system dates back to over 400 years and is about to stop delivering physical letters after 400 years long journey. Denmark’s cherry, bright red mail boxes will be only visible in the museum shortly as PostNord has delivered the last letter in 30 December, 2025. Sooner or later, following the footprints of Denmark, the other countries will start the same and the post offices may be transformed into digital hubs, offering many services to cater the modern’s consumer needs. The story-lines of films like ‘Airmail’, ‘Miracle on the 34th Street’, ‘The Postman’, ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered for Christmas’, ‘The Mailbox’, ‘Postmaster’, and many more films that have portrayed the human eternal values of love, life, and destiny will seldom be made.” After listening this, the tech-shabby son questioned “Papa, how can you ignore the jet age, market economy, and social revolution?’ I continued,” Ratan will no longer wait for her master, Amal will no longer wait for the letter from the almighty, 83 years old Lethe (Mailbox) will no longer wait for her mailbox, People will seldom write to letter either God or the departed dear and near one, never listen the miracle on the 34th street and many more. No father will wait for letter from her daughter as portrayed in ‘Dhumketu’. The story-lines that have made the best creation in literature will forget the roads.” The story may continue further, but my son has to check his mail box for other emergent correspondence. My son confirmed, “Papa, you still continue to write letters to me as before to convey your love and good wishes in black and white”. By this time, the bright, golden sunlight has extended its arms far from my sitting space. I think there are still many who do not want to make the post office an endangered species and earnestly wait to listen to ‘ding-dong’.
