Our beloved postman retires!
Surinder Pal, our postman in Green Park – Green Park Extn retires this month. He served the colony for over thirty years. This modest person is soft spoken, well mannered and diligent in his duties. Off in early hours for work to his assigned territory, he has lunch of home packed food at the post office parking lot. Distribution of letters of one thousand per day was a tough task about fifteen years ago. During those days, he had to devote long hours, upto eight o’clock in the evening distributing letters on foot and on bicycle. The monsoon season was always a challenge with numerous difficulties. Lately, the count of letters has dwindled to just about hundred per day.
He remembers his early days when his father, also a postman, introduced him as a packer on daily wages of Rs. 8 per day and later on a temporary job at Rs. 300 per month. By 2010, Surinder was on permanent job as a packer at Vasant Vihar post office, involved in packing post into bags and loading and unloading them into transport vehicles. He confided that his current pay is Rupees One Lakh a month and the residents treated him with affection and respect.
A trainee post man accompanies him on his current rounds at our colony. Surinder Pal with his family and two computer savvy sons shall continue to stay at Palam. He is aware that he will maintain an active post retirement life.
The red post box, the post office red colour, stamp collection, which engrossed the hobbiest for hours with exposure to culture, famous personalities, flora, monuments and festivals in the world, the picture postcards and well preserved letters from pen friends, letters of advice, encouragement and statesmanship, love and rebuke, the game of chess played for months through post, and postmen will be history. We will miss Surnder Pal, his paddling with speed, the subtle ring of his bicycle bell and connect with the melodious song ‘’Dakia Dak Laya”…………… We will miss all these pleasures. Changing times indeed !
