Good Old Postman

A lonely mid-week afternoon and as I lean by my bedroom casement, I see this tall-fair man with a trolley of letters… err, nope they can’t be letters! Who writes a letter these days anyways? They gotta be some important utilities bill or notices etc. but who cares…  I drift into nostalgia and my bedroom casement becomes the verandah railing of my old Calcutta home where I spent so many afternoons waiting for those perfectly handwritten letters!

In no time, I conjure up the picture of the man who delivered unto me so much joy, tears, fun and good news from so many people in so many corners of the world! Mr. Postman was the news-man for me; and no news anchor ever gave me as much as that elderly gentleman did over the years…  Especially around the festive season, my mail box often littered with bright coloured envelopes carrying fond wishes of dear ones… Oh! How they brightened up my days… yes, they meant a lot to me! And I know they were genuine… 

I used to spend a considerable amount of my pocket-money too for sending out wishes across the country… and if my dad read this post he would vouch for the truthfulness of the statement. Those were the days! People did things in good earnest, or so it seems to me….  ‘cos today when I’m light-years (a hyperbole once in a while doesn’t hurt) away from my loved ones, I never receive any such handwritten wish especially for me… wrapped in a colourful envelope.

My man tells me ‘Wishful thinking!!’ Well, a man with such few emotions and fewer words wouldn’t have much to write anyways… but I knew men who wrote letters that made wonderful reads. And then there were the emails, very quick and convenient but alas! With them we lost the human touch. And now finally, we have the generic status messages as wishes, much like the oft-used ‘One size fits all’. The entire world seems to be at peace with the new order of things… but to me they lack warmth… am I the only one who feels this way? Often I wonder whether the old stacked letters have become symbolic of pent-up human emotions… and while I listen to The Carpenters’ ‘Please Mr. Postman’, any thoughts anyone?