Boldly going...

Captain's Log: Star date 5 December, 2008

This is the voyage of the star ship HR26 AR 9690. It's mission: to seek out new civilisations; to boldly go where no Raju has gone before...inside a Post Office to post a letter.

Luckily for me, the Post Office at Galleria was closed for lunch. This surprised me somewhat, because it was 1pm, and it wouldn't have opened before 11. Anyway, I had these Christmas cards that had to be posted, and two children that needed to be picked up from school at 2.20, so Raju and I headed into Delhi in search of a Post Office. He knew there was a post office near Sarojini Nagar Market, and a good Post Office it was. It was like stepping back into the 1950's, except it was a 1950's where they only spoke Hindi. We walked past five or so counters with older Indians milling in front of them. They were probably queueing...in the Indian way. I think they were the Post Office bank accounts counters. Around the corner there was another counter, with a man sitting behind it doing nothing. We showed him our Christmas cards. He didn't sell stamps. And he didn't tell us where we could buy them. But another customer did, so we moved to the next counter along. There was a younger man sitting behind the counter. I'd say he was doing nothing, but that wouldn't be quite correct, because he was listening to his Ipod. We showed him our Christmas cards, he weighed them and told us 25 rupees. I had 15 cards, so I got out a 500 rupee note. Raju turned to me and said, no 25 rupees. I told him, "each". The man gave us 15 20 rupee stamps and 15 5 rupee stamps. Raju asked the man which stamps went where, and that is when I realised Raju had never posted a letter before. So I got out my glue stick (because these stamps are neither self adhesive nor gummed) and showed him how to stick the stamps onto the letter. We then left the Post Office proper and went to see the Postmaster in the office next door. He's the man with the big postmark stamp, the one that ensures your stamps have no value to anyone else. He stamps each letter hard, re-inking each time. This is a man who enjoys hand cancelling these stamps, he knows the value of his job. I can see, clearly, that there is a real benefit in using a Post Office near the Diplomatic Enclave, home to most of the embassies. This guy's actually seen Airmail letters before, he knows what foreigners want done with them. I could even hope these Christmas cards will go somewhere, maybe not as far as the addresses on the envelopes, but at least beyond the confines of this office.