A day in the life of a Post Man.
Mr. Gopalakrishnan N, aka Gopi, arrives at the post office by 8 am. His first task is to segregate the mail into Registered Money Order and Speed Post. After this, he bundles his quota, jumps onto his Hero Splendor and starts delivering the mail. Gopi is a busy man. His phone is ringing off the hook during the interview and he doesn’t dare decline any call. He answers them all, in quick succession, taking breaks in between to respond to my mundane questions. He says that nowadays, with a dearth in greeting cards and letters, there are more advertisements and bills in the mail; they are often labelled as junk mail. Presenting a sheet with addresses printed on them, he substantiates the influence of technology which involves scanning a bar code to retrieve and store data, saving him from the drudgery of doing it manually. Gopi says that he covers almost 8 km every day. He starts his delivery at Tulsi-Raman Road, rides through street after street, sometimes delivering letters to his sister-in-law; finally returning to the office at 3:30 pm. After this, he must submit the undelivered money orders to the cashier and the rest to the concerned clerk. He leaves office at 4 pm. Strikes are not uncommon at the Post Office, sporadically stirred by the Trade Unions. He mentions one which took place in the first week of June this year. Here, the postmen protested because they had not yet received their seventh pay commission.

The following two tabs change content below.
Mark Sequeira
Latest posts by Mark Sequeira (see all)
- Untold histories paint poor pictures - 13th February 2020
- Where are they now? When was the last time you had a Post Man bringing you letters? - 10th July 2018
- An Interview with Mr Fareed Ahmed of Mecca Book House - 11th January 2018