A Post on Post

Ideally this should be my first post. What happened yesterday wasn’t a post. But Since I’ve posted it. It’s become a post!

Post word reminds me that Post used to be the most dreaded institution of my life. Not to deny, it still continues to be the most dreaded institution of my life. With Post, I mean the Postal Department and not what people hold in Police service. That is ‘Posht’.

Thanks to people like Sabeer Bhatia who deleted Post’s presence from my life. One fine day he walked into Bill Gate’s office wanting to sell a porn site ‘Hot Male’. It also had a mail program in it. Bill Gates kept the coding for mail program with him and paid him its cost. The program was later called Hot Mail to avoid pervert people from taking wild guesses about what it was.

The rest of the site was sold in parts to Elton John and George Micheal, since none of them could afford Bhatia’s prices completely. With that money Sabeer Bhatia bought an island in Pacific Ocean, where he could shoot for his all other upcoming porn sites on Hot Males in peace. Vijay Mallya and Atul Kasbekar also go there to shoot the highly confidential ‘Queenfisher’ calendar for drag queens.

The mail program however got more famous than the porn site. There was a notable shift of the young masculine audiences from ‘female’ to ‘email’. (The later stage is ‘Gmail’, which men perceived as a mail box in the shape of a G-string and women as a satisfying web application since it had both ‘G’ and ‘Male’ in it.)

This mail program was later copied, lifted, spoofed or imitated by many other website offering similar Email support. And thus Emails made a silent below-the-door entry into every household around the world. India being the forerunner, as secrecy in postage had been a matter of utmost concern to every generation of young men here. Imagine a copy of ‘Garam Jawani’ being dropped at your doorstep after being scanned through by your local postman. Imagine the ‘I-know-what-you-read’ smile on his face each time you crossed paths with him. And imagine the same postman delivering your report cards home. This time with a ‘I-know-why-you-scored-such-marks’ smile on his face.



My fear of Post was predominantly related to Report Cards. My school had a sharp sadistic side to it. It began with morning assemblies where late comers were asked to publicly apologise and occasional cane whippings from teachers of various subjects on a rotating basis.

As an extension of this year long sadism, our school used to give us empty envelopes at the beginning of the vacations (or end of the year, however we may take it). We were supposed to write our postal addresses on it and give it back to our class teachers. They would then use these envelopes to mail us our report cards in the middle of the vacation, exactly the day before Dad was going to buy the video game you were yearning for since you had developed fingers.

And guess who would bring home the bad news? Yes! The bloody postman! Well, not all had this ill fate. It was the day of triumph for some. Their report cards were filled with unbelievable two-digit figures which started with 9. All my hyper-intelligent cousins included. More marks they got, more music I faced. I have forgiven them, but my heart still has a fizzed off grudge in it. And there was only one institution to be blamed for it. No. not the education ministry but the Post Office.

Several times, I tried hard to scribble my address in the most illegible scrawling, such that the post man had no other option than to give my report card to some squatter to wipe his excretory orifice after defecation.

But that human with 20-20 or 24-24 eyesight, read it correctly and delivered it right to my doorstep, every damn vacation! This didn’t satisfy him. After this, he also asked for a ‘bakshish’ since I had been promoted to the next class. I used to be in a too miserable state at that moment to be enraged at him and devise a mechanism like thrusting ice cold iron rods up his nose so that his sinuses are frozen into rocks. As dad’s hand held my report card, I used to transform into a convulsed woolly lamb from a striped white tiger on the playground. Such are the pains that have been inflicted upon me by the Post.

And this did not end here. In my later stages of boyhood, they used to deliver inland letters with puzzles on them, which upon solved, would avail me a Television Set absolutely free. Yes, I did rummage through all my mathematics books and solve them correctly and sent those accurately filled letters back it to them. And I did win a TV Set as a prize too. But the inland (yes, an inland this time too) which proclaimed my victory, also asked for a money order of Rs. 90, as delivery charges for the gift.

I swear to god, the money which I paid was hard saved. But the Television Set hasn't arrived till date. The postman changed after 4 years. And every new TV Set entering my building premises was scrutinised by me till the time we shifted from the place. But the promised TV set never arrived. I still nurture a doubt that the Postman or the Postmaster has kept the TV set for himself and is till date using it, maybe in his bedroom now, to watch Astha channel as the first thing when he wakes up in the morning with Asaramji Bapu preaching the value of honesty in his hypnotic somnolent sermon. (I have always wondered why people want to start their day that heady buzz! Doesn't it drive them to sleep again at the time they should be pushing themselves towards something that is just the opposite of it? )

Later, my coaching classes used to send even horrific report cards of weekly exams home through the same Postal service. Let me tell you, these were the exams in which I had often created records on lowest scores, of which -2 in Mathematics still lies unbeaten! Even though I deserved an applause for that from my parents, I never asked for it from them. I was quite confident that they would land it on some integral part of my body, like my cheek.

Somehow, after this, Email crept into our lives, and everything went online. And the moment of ecstasy arrived when it delivered exam results online. Internet packed my colossal failures into my ‘Inbox’ which I later directed to ‘Trash’.

Even now the postman arrives with some volatile paperwork like Credit Card statements which fill themselves in such a way that the reader feels he has also paid for 'Sulabh Toilet'usage with his credit card. Or telephone bills which indicate that the payee had chosen to ask to person sitting next to him in train to move a bit so that he could fit his fourth butt on a bench for three- on a telephone call. And To justify this, they have a long list of digits which look like the title credits of ‘Matrix’. And yes, who can forget the bank statements which only state about the bankruptcy of my account and fines deducted from the remaining Rs.34.67 for maintaining a low balance, bringing it down to Rs.00.02. Banks have some really spirit crushing rules.

Lately, I have enrolled for online payments, banking, billing, drilling, thrilling, killing, spilling, milling and all other such online services that billers provide these days. No more does the slithery postman appear at my doorstep with a scary bundle of papers and a hideous smile on his face. No more does he ask for 'bakshish' and now he no more is aware of what porn I receive. It’s a wonderful life!

Very soon, the word Post will be completely eliminated from my life. But I will still keep on posting some blogs on and off.