The lady in white in the pic? A bit of a Bandra legend who for years has been directing traffic on Hill Road. I spotted her today taking a well deserved break. She’s part of the home guard I think.
Why don’t you write a story on your post office interactions, asked K when I returned from a visit to the local PO last week. I’d gone there to collect a car related document which had gone to our earlier apartment. Luckily the postman proactively called me when he was told that we don’t live any more at the address given. The address was taken from our Aadhar card. I’d tried to change the blessed thing online during the lockdown to no avail. The postman said they I could go to the PO and pick it up once he was done with his rounds. He would call me when he was back and I was to call him once I reached instead of going to the ‘returned post’ room as I had in the past in such cases.
I followed his instructions. Stood at the gate and called him. He came out. Tallied my id proof and then handed me the envelope. There might have been a reason he met me outside. Or might not. I leave that to your imagination but it was well deserved. If it was so!
I went to the PO today and what followed explains why I don’t have much to write about my post office experiences. It’s because I have rarely managed to get anything done there! The latest incident is this. I went to correct my Aadhar card. I saw a group of people outside the Aadhar card room. A fight had broken out. One lady stormed off alleging the other had a tongue like a scissor. ‘Kechi jaise zaban.’ Move over Edward Scissorhands. Ekta Scissortongue rules Vandre.
I went in to room to ask what the procedure was. A swarthy and apparently geometrically challenged gentleman menacingly said, ‘boss line hain.’ A statement which came from a morning of pent up frustration Those waiting sat facing each other on benches and chairs which were arranged in a circle. More 360 degrees than the 0 degrees which a ‘line’ is. I sized him up anD decided not to get into a debate on the subject and kept quite a few degrees of separation between us.
I was directed to counter 9 by the gentleman in civvies in the Aadhar room. A gentleman in a postman’s fatigues manned counter 9. He looked at me with a ‘listen very carefully, I will say this only once’ look from Halo Halo, said ‘aat baaje token dete hain. Pehele panra jaan.’ We give tokens at 8 am and to the first 15 people. He might have said 25, I am not sure.
He saw my panicked, ‘I am Bengali and a writer. I don’t wake up at 8am,’ look and gently told me to go to a bank opposite the hospital down the road. ‘Aasani se ho jayega.’ It will happen easily. Evidently not bothered about what this admission did to the brand image of the post office where he worked. It is what it is.
I went to the said bank. There was an earnest and helpful slim young gentleman manning the Aadhar counter. He saw my documents and said it was good enough and asked me for the Aadhar card. Of course if there was only one person in the world who was stupid enough to go for an Aadhar address change with the correct address proof BUT NOT his Aadhar card, it had to be a writer who walks with his head in the clouds!
I went home and returned with the Aadhar card. Met our neighbour in the lobby who told me about why she was filming the lobby (to send to a flat owner who lived abroad and who wanted to see the change). We exchanged stories of our day and I dropped her at Bandra Bazar. She’s an ‘authentic’ Bandra girl. Has lived in our building from the time she was born.
I reached the bank to be told that I would have to wait as more people had come regarding card issues since when I dropped in earlier. Fair enough. I used the extra time to write this story.
Coming back to the PO, I’d go in my early years in Mumbai to buy stamps to send New Year cards to sundry, letters to my mom and my Didu (weekly in English and monthly in Bangla), and the odd billet doux. I would drop these in the light blue ‘Metro Letterbox’ which came with the promise of doing metro to metro deliveries faster than by the traditional red box. This was in the late 1990s. So far so good. Then we stopped writing letters
I went to the PO a few years later, now settled in Bandra and Mumbai, to change my PPF account to Bandra from Tollygunge PO. I was a bit lost among the PO personnel who hurriedly and irritatedly barked instructions in Marathi. My knowledge of Marathi which started from ‘mala kadak Coffee paije’ and ended with ‘ek misal laukar. Kam tikhat’ was not of much help.
Suddenly a soft spoken and kind, elderly lady walked up to me. She asked me what happened had, took me and my pass book into the premises, spoke to folks and lo, the Red Sea was parted and I now had a PPF account linked to Andheri as Bandra was a feeder PO. My knight in shining salwar suit turned out to be a PO agent and I returned home with some NSC investments done and a health insurance which I didn’t want! My mom has many such PO stories but then documenting that would be a six season Netflix series.
I moved the PPF account to my bank once one had the option. Now, I sit at my desk and transfer money from my savings account to PPF account once a year and then send the certificate by mail to my CA for the cheerful folks at the IT department. The wondrous world of online transactions continues to fascinate me. Now I can even order green chillies using online app! Anyone who feels that a PPF is not a good investment and wants to butt in, please talk to my mother in law instead A venerable Parsi lady who swears by PPF and advises everyone to invest in it. She shut her own years back. Continues to rue it till this date.
My PO trip today was not entirely futile. The advice to go to the bank worked.
While waiting I saw an elderly lady in a sari go there the counter. She looked my mom from the back. The banker at the other side tried to tell her that she needn’t come to the bank everyday as her document would be mailed tomorrow. ‘Aap ghari ghari mat aiye, aapka ghar poucch jayega.” She kept repeating her question. Finally the banker turned to the lady’s assistant who conveyed the message to her employee, ‘bari te chithi aashbe. Ekhane aashte hobe na bolchhen,’ and then the two left. The elderly lady not looking very pleased. In case the Bangla made you thing I was in Bansdroni and not Bandra, let me tell you that I heard another gentleman in a flowery bush shirt and terrycot shorts, yell into the phone, ‘I am in Bandra men (sic).’ A Goan or an East Indian evidently but then Bandra is very ‘cosmopolitan’ and a government bank gives you an idea of the residents of a place. There were Catholics, Muslims, Maharashtrians and even Bengalis evidently.
Soon my turn came and the young gentleman displayed admirable multitasking abilities. He filled up form, keyed the info into a laptop, got the changes vetted by me. All this giving instructions to a junior colleague by phone on how to record the forms AND fielding queries from a policeman about when the matter’s card would come. Rigours of his job, didn’t leave him with much time to follow up on his card I guess.
The young gentleman would be a misfit in the PO. On asking, he told me that he belongs works with ‘UID’ and not to the bank. The charge for the service was the ‘government charge’ of Rs 50 and that’s all. I was so overwhelmed with gratitude that I was ready to recommend him for the Bharat Ratna! In case you want to know where to find him, this is BOB opposite Holy Family and the timings are 10 am to 4 pm. I wonder if he managed to get the time out to have lunch.
There’s something else that came out the PO visit apart from the marvellous passing the buck suggestion to go to the bank to get my work done.
I saw the bhajiya and misal pav stall opposite the PO and clicked a pic for you. Its patrons include bank PO staff, policemen and those who had come to the police station or to the hospital next door. One of the few vada pav stalls in Tony Vandre. I would have gone to it if it wasn’t for my dietician who polices my insta feed. I could have gone off the radar of course, even though eating something without posting a picture and telling people about it feels rather strange. Do people actually do that?
Truth be told, I was rather full from breakfast of scrambled egg with truffle cheddar and toast which I had just half an hour before I went to the post office.
I was ravenous by the time I was done at the bank. Came home and then the headache hit me. I grilled rawas and sat down to a sumptuous and well balanced meal which my dietician would give me extra credit for.
Then drew the curtains, finished this story and a call, put the phone on aeroplane mode and a pillow pressed on my head and went off to sleep. Oh yes, I instructed Banu on how to make a kadhai chicken for dinner in between all this and checked it at the end and gave finishing touches. I woke up and had a chicken shawarma from Arbab. More expensive than the others around by much better quality and very soothing.
See. You say I don’t write about food anymore! Happy?
