Postcard from the past....

I stepped into the post office and I travelled back by 15 years in time. The ancient ceiling fans, the wooden furniture, the banyan tree just outside, the low doors and high ceilings, it was right out of the champak, tinkle and gokulam world. The postmen in their khakhi coats were all sitting around a big wooden table on their wooden benches and were sorting out the letters. Their bicycles were parked under the banyan tree. 

It was such a different scene from the plush corporate, air conditioned, thickly carpeted, glass offices where you get greeted with a fake "How may I help you?". This actually felt real, like something you would immediately associate with a typical Indian scene. Laughing postmen, gossiping women, some old retired men standing in queue, and absolutely no youngsters in sight.

This took me back to the time when I was a little girl with big dreams. I used to wait for the postman to make his daily rounds every afternoon, hoping that he would have something for us. Atleast once a month, my grandfather would send us letters from Delhi. I read those letters again and again. They were not just letters, but tokens of immense love and affection. My grandfather's handwriting is still so clear in my memory.

The post office made me nostalgic. It reminded of those times when life was about climbing guava trees and summer vacations. It was about wide eyed wonder and curiosity to understand the world. It was about grandparents narrating stories while i would lie down cuddled on my grandma's lap. It was about feeling that the world was just my small and protected little world, which had endless possibilities. It was about hope and the ability to dream that I was capable of being anybody I wanted to be, It was just about being the child I was and who I have now lost and forgotten.