Postal Week: the postman’s cycle bell stays heard in official communication and in notes of nostalgia

As part of Postal Week, presenting two voices from Chennai, one on the nostalgic side to postal services and the value old postcards still hold at a personal and community level, and the other on the continuing relevance of the local post office in this digital world. “My mother used to have a savings account and some fixed deposits in the Mylapore Post Office,” recalls Ramaswamy Rangachari. “After I came back to India, I have been banking with the Sholinganallur Post Office.” For him, the post office is not merely about monetary transactions. As a trustee of an NGO supporting rural education, he personally mails receipts, scholarships, and teacher salaries through Speed Post every week. There is an air of officialdom and formality about documents sent through physical mail that cannot be matched by digital mail. And that is one of the areas where the humble postman on the cycle will not lose his relevance. Prabhakar V, a resident of Anna Nagar, collects memories in various forms — tram tickets, coins, books, everyday objects from bygone eras and postcards. Many of his postcards have come from Moore Market, exhibitions and online forums where collectors traded living fragments of the past. Among his most treasured postcards are two wedding invitations printed on postcards.