Karma in the Time of Turbulence -I

In the charged atmosphere at the Ramlila Maidan, in the midst of all the high decibel activity, Satish Chand, a postman from the Indra Prastha Post Office of New Delhi has quietly been delivering mail every day to none other than Anna Hazare.

It is a huge crowd, and it is in thrall. Locating anyone in the middle of all this is next to impossible. But the cell phone helps. And Satish Chand with his postman instincts efficiently guides me over the phone to himself, even as he steadily progresses through the dense gathering from the main gate at one end of the Ramlila Maidan to the raised stage at the other.

Satish has the postman bag safely clutched in his hand. Today he has letters only for one person. The addressee is seated on the elevated stage at the Maidan. He is on a protest fast, and all activity within visible distance is centred on him. His name is Anna Hazare.

“Though the fast has been on for ten days, mail started flowing in only from the third day”, says Satish, in cultured Hindi. He along with his colleague Dharam Pal has been delivering letters, registered letters, money orders and Speed Post shipments every day since then. I am unnerved by the thought being at work in the midst of such a massive gathering, and in such an emotionally charged environment. “Don’t you feel scared”, I ask, “more so since you are a uniformed government servant finding your way through a gathering which is protesting against the government?”

“No saab”, smiles Satish. His conviction is strong and simplicity, disarming. “The dakiya is welcome everywhere, even in protest marches. I just tell people I am carrying mail for Anna Hazare, and they make way for me. No one has created any problem.”

“But these are not normal working conditions”, I insist.  He thinks over and agrees. Reaching the elevated stage from the main gate itself takes 45 minutes. There are many checks and searches in between. “My work is simple, saab”, he explains. “I have to find the right addressee and hand over his mail. It makes no difference how much I have to wait, or whether I have to walk long in the sun. My duty is complete when all the mail pieces are distributed to the right recipients”. 

(Continued in Part II)

- PN Ranjit Kumar

The writer is Director (Global Business) at India Post. The views are personal.

Karma in the Time of Turbulence -II

In the charged atmosphere at the Ramlila Maidan, in the midst of all the high decibel activity, Satish Chand, a postman from the Indra Prastha Post Office of New Delhi has quietly been delivering mail every day to none other than Anna Hazare.

(Continued from Part I)

Delivering mail to individuals and groups at temporary camps is not new to the Post Office. Satish himself has distributed mail to religious and political organisations camping at Ramlila Maidan many times in the past. What is different with Anna Hazare’s event is the volume. If it was one or two dozen letters in the past, it is a few hundred every day this time. “Annaji has also been receiving many e-Post messages”, says Satish. E-Post is a hybrid mail product where the e-mail messages from sender is printed out by the Post Office and delivered as a letter. The younger followers probably find a tailor made solution in e-Post to connect with the venerable Gandhian.

“An office has been set up next to the stage, and it functions efficiently”, informs the post man. “Completing the documentation for registered letters and money orders has not been a problem”. He also reports that the flow of money orders has thinned – from about Rs.15,000 in the initial days it has declined to about Rs. 500 now.

As the crowd at the Maidan continues to respond to its leaders, our conversation gets increasingly subsumed in the noise. It would surely be difficult to ignore this build-up and this emotionally charged atmosphere, I argue. Doesn’t he get influenced when he witnesses this every day? “When I am in my uniform, my concern is only the mail in my hand”, Satish says with the same clarity of thought as before.

The brief chat over, Satish resumes his journey along the line of his duty. As I wade my way back through the sea of Anna’s supporters, my thoughts go to the karmic bonds that link people to other people and to institutions. Satish Chand has grasped the essence of his trade - the Post Office is all about simple tasks done the right way.

- PN Ranjit Kumar

The writer works as Director (Global Business) at India Post. The views are personal.

Art Project on Posting Your eMail

A global voluntary initiative that propagates the strength of the written word over its digital counterpart

I long to receive a three page, heart-rending, soppy letter, filled with words carefully chosen and eternal.

- Bobbie Ann Pimm (American writer)

It is not nostalgia alone that makes us long for that elusive letter – it is also the feeling of warmth that it evokes, its ability to revive all those soft emotions of connecting with someone your own.

Ivan Cash, a 25-year old entrepreneur from San Francisco and lover of this quaint, old school form of communication, recently decided to spread the message of the hand-written letter far and wide. The result is a start-up, which is creating waves ironically in cyberspace, called Snail Mail My Email (SMME). A free transcription service, SMME takes your e-mail messages (subject to a word limit of 100), writes them down in manuscript and sends it on to the receiver, free of cost. Snail Mail My Email describes itself as an interactive community art project which seeks to share the warm-fuzzy feeling of receiving a personalized letter as well as to inspire people to send their own snail mail.Cash has the support of a global network of volunteers and the project will run for a one month period from July 15 to August 15.

We live in a world where the invisible information highway seems to have all but evicted the good old letter from everyday life. The folded paper in the envelope, carrying “words carefully chosen and eternal”, may be the next best thing to a loved one turning up at the door in person, but only very few of us either write or receive letters today. Is letter writing a lost art already?

Luckily many people like Cash still believe in the value of the written word over its digital counterpart, and they initiate efforts to ensure the survival of this art. Civil Society projects, school initiatives and art projects have taken place in different parts of the world. The public response to these efforts, like in the case of SMME, has always been warm and spontaneous. The art of the personal letter may be endangered, but is certainly not dead.

The letter is a beautiful expression of emotions, and an evolved representation of human nature. When you write a letter, you probably make someone’s day. The SMME project and other letter-writing initiatives, therefore, need all the support they can get.

How to join Snail Mail My Email: Anyone with internet access can partake SMME  by simply sending an email, after which the very same message will be handwritten and physically mailed to the chosen recipient anywhere in the world, completely free of charge. For details log on to http://snailmailmyemail.org/