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Post Script - By- Shaili Chopra Shaili Chopra Shaili is currently a senior graduate student in Economics Honours at Delhi University, India. She is the features editor of a print magazine called "Campus dot com" for the university itself. She is a fond cook and a intrepid traveller. She is fond of writing and poetry. Her poetry and writings are published in many magazines, Newspapers and on websites.

Has the e-rage dealt a death blow to the neighbour friendly post office?Is it threatening the employment of that man in Khaki who goes from house to house delivering the much-awaited love letters, little parcels from friends relatives, and the only hope of the retired or dependent, the money order!An indispensable part of the Village Community,often he was the only literate person in the village who read and wrote letters for them. On the other hand a tinkle of his bell at an odd hour would send many a heartbeats racing with anticipation and sometimes fear.Through his daily visits to the neighbourhood, he not only became a part of the family's sensibilities and aspirations, but also shared their moments of joy and sorrow.

Like the postman, the postal system gave two other very symbolic institutions to any town, the Central Post office (CPO) and the Post Box. The CPOs were the most magnificent buildings that came up in every town in the last two centuries, rivalled at times, only by the Railway Stations. They not only changed the city skyline, but also became the meeting points in town centre. After all they were the hub of the modern communication. The red coloured post boxes with that peculiar black metal hat dotted the city streets. These often attracted those lone rangers, who cycled or walked all the way just to feel assured that their all-important letter had got correctly lowered through the narrow slit and was sitting pretty and snuggled along with the other mail. Who hath not read the hand- painted time schedule of the next clearance and cursed, why couldn't it have been a little earlier, or felt horrible having missed it by a few minutes?

The Henry Ford of E-mail, Sabeer Bhatia, the e-angel, has expanded the scope of communications vastly leaving the Post Master General heading a fast crumbling Empire, and an under employed army. Like the speed post and the courier service in the recent past, the private enterprise has snatched the last of its remnants, the post card, as if signalling the last post of this otherwise strong edifice. The e-document delivery today has not only become instant, but is totally assured and with an immediate acknowledgement at no extra cost. Within a few years the last of the villages, even in a third world country like India, would be on the Net expressway. The postage stamp and the post card would then become only a collector's item.

Do we have a plan for the re-structuring of this massive service public friendly work force, or will we continue to post-pone it till it declares itself "post-humous"? Things are evolving 'post haste' to end the 'Post-age'. I suppose the Post Offices would soon be renamed Communication Centres, and house the facilities for E-mail, Voice mail, Video Conferencing and support Cable Internet in the colony, and hope they can take on physical deliveries of e-business articles so that our friend in Khaki could continue visiting us. Any withdrawal strategy in favour of the private sector has to be gradual, keeping the human sensitivities in mind. May be the private sector will employ this god sent being.

I have always considered the letter to be like the wind. It comes from a far off place, and we can feel it. The modern day materialism had nearly killed the art of letter writing. The Internet has given it a second birth, albeit it may be short lived. I remember 30 years back when one used to correspond with a girlfriend, one wasted many a fancy letter pad sheets having scribbled and erased, because the words were not adequate to convey the feelings of the heart. In today's cut-paste-edit scenario one can, not only twist, turn and toss your heart out, but make sure it is grammatically correct and that it has been spell-checked. Also that the ultimate saviour, the few-lined Post Script, squeezed into the bottom of your letter, can now be an attachment running into many hundred kilobytes. Unfortunately, soon the Voice and Video mail will blow a death knell to the letter once and for all. Of course the research on smell through the net may partially compensate by activating the bodily juices. May be the technology will go full circle, and a day will come when the man itself will be plugged in through sensors and our feelings and thoughts will be transmitted directly into the recipient's body :no different from the emotionally charged letters of yesteryears.

Till we connect again...

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