HELLO! POST OFFICE, WHERE ARE YOU? I was to send a document by Speed Post. But that day evening, an urgent work put us on a Bangalore bound bus. So I carried forward the task of speed post to Bangalore. After finishing the scheduled work, we went in search of a post office (PO). We were in Majestic. Where do we look for the PO. Meanwhile, my wife went to a news-stand to buy news paper and to replenish her Telugu magazine collection. I too bought Indian Express. Having bought the paper I just had a quick glance over the contents. On the left bottom corner of the supplement (City Express – Bangalore edition Aug 1, 2013) under a caption “Some body save me”, there is a photo of a dilapidated post box. There were few other interesting news stories. Then reminding ourselves of the task of the speed post, we went in search of PO. Again the question was where to start. We thought of enquiring with a local shop. They are the people who are familiar with local terrain. And, why not news-standwala? But, to our surprise, he does not know where the nearest PO is. Ok, another shop. He too doesn’t know. Then another shop, tea stall, restaurant, …. No, none of them knows where the PO is. So far we are assuming that finding a PO is a routine job. But, our casual inquiries have assumed the proportion of urgency, if not panic. Based on our past experience in such cases of unknown addresses, we hired an auto. We hoped he will be knowing the where abouts of the nearest PO. But, it didn’t take much time to discover that he too does not know. In fact he has started the engine, only after making few queries with his own resources. He gathered that the PO is somewhere near Sangam Theatre complex. I was reminded of the good olden days where PO was serving as a land mark. Addresses were often referred to as ‘just three block from PO’. But now some theatre is serving as a landmark for PO. The auto took us to Sangam theatre complex. After few queires at that place, we were told that there is no PO around. What surprised us was that almost everyone was guessing, based on when did they last use a PO. Finally after few more queries we found that the PO is near Tribhuvan theatre. Fortunately atleast a few were giving positive directions. And, we could locate a not so prominent name board declaring mutely that the PO is somewhere around that board. I presumed hopefully that a distorted feature below the pincode could have been an arrow pointer. The pointer guided us to a narrow gully. Further queries led us to a non-descript building, and then to a poorly lit stair case. We should now climb to the first floor. A kind hearted soul, keeping my knee pain in view suggested that, we take the lift to second floor (since the lift does not stop at first floor) and then walk down to the first floor. After the detour, we were led to a place with hardly one or two customers and more staff. The staff, of course were very good, cooperative and efficient. While handing over the receipt, he pointed to the tracking number with an assuring smile, and said that I can track the post using that number. We didn’t leave the premises immediately. I sat there for a while wondered whether that photo I have seen in the City Express was any indicator of the ordeal we undertook to discover the PO. While tracing back our track, one anxious young boy was asking us, “What is the way to post office Sir”. After guiding him with directions, I felt relieved that, at least we are not the only ones, inadvertently participating in this “Find-the-post-office-if-you-can” competition.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 22:32:56 +0000
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